SISTER AND SAINT. 



j± sk:e t o pi 



OF THE LIFE OF 



JACQUELINE PASC A L 



BY 



/ 



SOPHY WINTHROP WEITZEL. 




NEW YORK: 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 

900 Broadway, corner 2oth Street. 



' 






.TsU/i- 



The Library 
of Congress 

washington 



Copyright, 1880, by 

AnsoxN D. F. Randolph & Company. 



Edward O. Jenkins, Printer, 

20 North William Street. 



<&vmt Twirls Klaus mx&tvstKwd ftotu 
mutU Qloxvi tXizxt is in freing Qtwft, 

MlCHELET. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
A Home in Auvergne, ------- ^ 3 

CHAPTER II. 
Poetry and Geometry, - - - - - - -15 

CHAPTER III. 

The Cardinal frowns ; the Cardinal smiles, 29 

CHAPTER IV. 
Into Normandy, - - - - - - -41 

CHAPTER V. 

A Flemish Bishop, - - - - - - - -55 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Director of Consciences, ----- 65 

CHAPTER VII. 
"The Obstacle becomes the Instrument," 79 

CHAPTER VIII. 
A Happy Year, ..-95 

CHAPTER IX. 
Climbing, - - - 113 

(v) 



vi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

Port Royal and the Mere Angelique, - 133 

CHAPTER XI. 
At the Convent Gates, - -151 

CHAPTER XII. 
Waiting, - - 167 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Lord Opens the Way, - - - - - 189 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Fresh Trials, --------- 205 

CHAPTER XV. 
A Bundle of Letters, - - - - - - -221 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Teaching the Convent School, 23.9 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Masterpiece and the Miracle, - 253 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Sorrowful Days, -- 275 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Those Left Behind, 295 

CHAPTER XX. 
(Supplementary). Fragments gathered up, - - 3°9 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



As good Bishop Jansen's ponderous book is said to have 
been " a tissue of texts from St. Augustine," so the web of 
this brief biography is woven of many threads from various 
authorities. 

Much of it is translation, some portions are adapted from 
previous translations. Every important item has been verified 
by reference to the best sources, especially to Sainte-Beuve, 
the acknowledged chief of Port Royal historians. Thus, though 
slight, the little history claims to be accurate. Its only 
aim is to lead to further acquaintance with the books on 
which it is founded and the noble group of characters it 
introduces. 

The following authorities may be consulted with profit and 
pleasure by any intelligent reader : 

FRENCH. 

Jacqueline Pascal. Premieres etudes sur les femmes il- 
lustres de XVI Ie siecle. V* Cousin. 

La jeunesse de Madame de Longueville. V. Cousin. 

Mme. de Longueville pendant la Fronde. V. Cousin. 

Vie de Jacqueline Pascal par Mme. Perier, sa sceur. 

Vie de Blaise Pascal par Mme. Perier, sa sceur. 

Lettres, opuscules et memoires de Gilberte et de Jacque- 
line, soeurs de Pascal. Faugere. 

Memoires de Marguerite Perier sur sa famille. Scenes 
dliistoire et de famille. Mme. De Witt, nee Guizot. 

(vii) 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



ENGLISH. 

Select Memoirs of Port Royal. 2 vols. By M. A. Schim- 
melpenninck. 

Life of Angelique Arnauld. By Frances Martin. 
Life of Pascal, by Principal Tulloch. 

The other books to which I refer will be chiefly interesting 
to those who are making a special study of the subject. 

Port Royal. Par C. A. Sainte-Beuve. 7 vols. 

Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de Port Royal. Par M. 
Fontaine. 

Memoires touchant la Vie de M. de St. Cyran. Par Lan- 
celot. 

Vies inteVessantes et edifiantes des Religieuses de Port 
Royal. 

Faugere's introduction to Pensees de Pascal. 

Leben Jacqueline Pascal. Nonne von Port Royal. Dr. 
Reuchlin. 

I mention also a Life of Jacqueline Pascal, published 
by Carter & Brothers, 1854, from which I have taken some 
translations of poems. 

June, 1880. S. W. W. 



A HOME IN AUVERGNE 



I. 



A HOME IN AUVERGNE. 



MISTORY gives us some charming glimpses. A 
distant city, a cluster of village dwellings, 
perhaps a solitary abbey catches the mind's 
eye, just as in a hasty journey roofs peep out here 
and there beneath which we would gladly linger, or 
a ruin flashes on us for an instant whose story we 
wish we could stop to hear. 

A wonderful picturesque charm gathers about 
certain names of places — it is the charm of vivid cir- 
cumstance, of dramatic event, of lofty character — 
all this under the enchantment of distance in time 
and difference in manners. 

Whenever we hear these names, though we may 
have little actual knowledge of the history connected 
with them, a picture rises to the eye and an interest 
stirs in the mind. 

Clermont, in the province of Auvergne, just south 
of the heart of sunny France, is one of these names. 

(3) 



Sister and Saint. 



The very word is breezy and suggestive. And from 
all we can learn of the surrounding country — mount- 
ainous and bold, yet rich and smiling — it seems fully 
to merit the affectionate praise with which Jacqueline 
Pascal celebrates it in these lines : 

" A climate, fertile in unnumbered charms, 
Though ornaments, save Nature's, it has none ; 
In stern simplicity, untouched by art, 
It yields a picture of its Maker's power. 
There, — in Auvergne, — from those proud peaks afar, 
Whose gloomy heights nor fruit nor harvests know, 
But in their stead dark precipices yawn — 
Rises a little hill, so fresh and fair, 
So favored by the Sun's celestial ray, 
That Clazrmont seems its most appropriate name." 

Our first glimpse of Clermont is an exceedingly 
striking one. Thither in 1095 came the pope, Urban 
II., with a great retinue of bishops, priests, and car- 
dinals, to hold a solemn council and preach the first 
crusade. 

Mellowed but not dimmed by the far mediaeval 
light, we see the picture ; — the broad open Place 
before the already noble cathedral, densely packed 
with a swaying, shouting, excited, expectant multitude 
— Rembrandt-like old men leaning on their staves, 
oddly-dressed women holding aloft oddly-dressed ba- 
bies, pious, humble peasants from the remotest hamlets 
of the province, come up to look once, before they die, 
on the representative of their Lord upon the earth, 
and to receive from him a blessing. 



A Home in Auvergne. 



Gay silken banners and festoons of gorgeous arras 
adorn the tall, steep-gabled houses that front the 
square. Ladies and children in costume the most 
brilliant and bizarre appear at the quaint, small, un- 
glazed windows. 

White hands (oh, how long ago turned to dust ! ) 
wave greetings answered by the gleam of knightly 
helmets in the square below. 

In the distance is heard the stirring sound of trump- 
ets, then the solemn chants of the Church. Then 
slowly comes into view the long procession of priestly 
dignitaries. Last of all, the pope himself, seated on 
a white mule, solemnly advances through the now 
hushed and kneeling multitude. He is conducted up 
the carpeted platform prepared for him, and pointed 
to the throne. But he turns his back upon it. His 
message can not wait. " II fait un geste de grande 
impatience," says the old chronicler, and turns toward 
the people. 

Then follow those burning words which, kindling 
on this ready populace — springing from low to high, 
from high back again to low — seizing with equal vio- 
lence ignorant peasant boys and girls and the great 
Count Raymond of Toulouse with Elvira, his beau- 
tiful wife — spread from this center over all France, 
from France over all Europe, and resulted in the 
sublime madness of the crusades. 

As the pope's voice ceased, it is said, a solemn cry 






burst from the multitude. M It is the will of God ! It 
is the will of God ! 

A knight tore h t mantle, and 

pinning the bits together in the form of a cross, fixed 
them on the shoulders of those near him. The crowd 
pres atiy around hi::: ro obtain the fragments. 

i booths of the merchants surrounding the Place 
were entered and rifled of their scarlet stuffs, and 
soon the inspiring emblem blazed on every side. 

A few weeks later the fountain clashed to a silent 
and deserted square, The knights were gone. The 
ladies and children lingered no longer at the windows 
in holiday attire, and we shall never again see Cler- 
mont in so picturesque a light as on that November 
afternoon. 

Six centuries after this we know of Clermont, or 
rather of its overhanging mountain, Puy-de-Dome, 
as one of the centers of scientific experiment on the 

ight of the atmosphere, of which experiments the 
barometer is the result. 

Again we read of the finding of the codex claro- 
mantanus — an early copy of St. Paul's epistles — in 
the monaster}- on the side of the mountain. This is 
a manuscript ;y scholars, and Tischen- 

dorf published it in fac-simile iv years ago. 

To-day Clermont is a noisy, humor. nufac- 

turing city. A railway connects it with Paris, but ter- 
minates here, so that the city stands, as of old, portal 



A Home in Auvergne. 



and fortress to the wild, rich province of Auvergne. 
It is quite out of the way of tourists, and even the 
" commercial traveler," intent on his purchases of 
linen or woolen fabrics, hosiery or paper, scarcely 
lingers long enough in the old Place to feel its quaint, 
peculiar charm. 

To us, in this little book, Clermont will be chiefly 
interesting as the early home of the Pascals. 

In the city's best days perhaps — the early part of 
the seventeenth century — this family lived here. The 
father, Etienne (or anglice Stephen), was President of 
the Court of Excise. This was a high position, open 
to him as member of a wealthy and influential family 
of long standing in the province. It had not been a 
titled race till, in 1478, Louis XL, in recognition of 
faithful service, bestowed upon it that honor, and 
thus our friends became possessed of that best patent 
of nobility which comes of good works. 

They lived, of course, in some stateliness — this 
father and his little family of one son and two daugh- 
ters—yet in much less than our modern American 
notions of elegance would lead us to suppose. For 
nowhere is the simplicity of true dignity more con- 
spicuous than in the daily life of the high families of 
France. The furnishing of those lofty, airy rooms, 
the quiet menage and simple diet would surprise us 
by their plainness. 

The eldest daughter, Gilberte, was obliged early to 



Sister and Saint. 



11 look well to the ways of her household," for her 
mother died when she was but seven years old. But 
while practicing her various domestic arts and learning 
that delicate craft of cooker}* in which every French 
lady is trained, she was not idle mentally. Her father 
taught her history, Latin, and mathematics, and with 
such success that she is mentioned by her brother's 
biographers as " une femme tres-instruite." She be- 
came a vigorous thinker — and in those days there was 
a deal of profound and practical thinking to be done 
— and in the specimens of her writing left to us in 
sketches of her brother and sister, her style is remark- 
ably clear, graceful, and pleasing. 

Blaise, the son, came next to Gilberte on the family 
record, and then the little Jacqueline, born in 1625, 
and a baby of a year old when her mother died. 
Blaise is the central figure of this family group. But 
for him we should have known next to nothing of 
Jacqueline, and nothing, probably, of Gilberte and 
their father. 

Blaise Pascal was first a thinker, then a saint. A 
wonderful combination of scientific acuteness and 
child-like faith, a shining example of great mental 
and great spiritual qualities, and one whose name 
will be always honored by men as diverse as the mate- 
rialist and the mystic. 

We could easily linger over his story. But seen 
in the side lights of family life, perhaps we shall 



A Home in Auvergne. 



find him quite as interesting as if more directly stud- 
ied. 

And, indeed, so intimate is his kinship with his 
sister Jacqueline, so closely interwoven the web of 
their deepest experiences, that, in reading of her, we 
must of necessity come very near him. 

This brother and sister were only about two years 
separated in age. They were companions in study 
and in play. His thoughts were her thoughts, not 
only in childhood, but throughout life, and so great 
was their sympathy in all respects that they have 
been spoken of as " spiritual twins." Her mind in 
youth was more versatile than his, and, while climb- 
ing with him to all his heights, she carried with her a 
feminine lightness and charm, " to cheat the toil and 
cheer the way," which must have been invaluable to 
him. 

Both these sisters, Gilberte and Jacqueline, are 
said to have been " parfaitement belles," which is 
certainly strong language. Gilberte, as soon as she 
was old enough, mingled in society suited to her 
rank, and was much admired, being beautiful, grace- 
ful, and very witty. And when Jacqueline, six years 
younger than Gilberte, in her turn grew to woman- 
hood, her charms were not unrecognized, as we shall 
see. 

And now, from this home in Clermont, let us look 
out for a moment over France and over Europe, and 



io Sister and Saint. 

see what kind of a world it is in which the Pascals 
their childhood. 

On the throne of France sits Louis XIII. But on 
the throne behind the throne, ruling with a rod of 
iron over king and people, is Richelieu, prime minis- 
ter and cardinal. Just at this time he is building for 
himself a new house — the Palais Royal. The large 
court-yard of this palace, now surrounded by brilliant 
shops and cafes, is familiar to every American who 
visits Paris. Almost everybody has taken a cup of 
coffee under the horse-chestnut trees, and bought a bit 
of clever imitation jewelry in one of the arcades. 
This is all that is left to-day of the glory of Richelieu's 
residence. The spacious halls and galleries, which ex- 
tended in all directions from this central court, have 
more than once suffered from violence and fire since 
his time. 

At the time of which we write, the Reformation 
had taken thorough hold of German}', and Protest- 
ants in France had become so numerous and powerful 
as to be worthy of Richelieu's hatred. His wars 
against them, and against England, as friendly to 
French Protestantism, came to a successful end in 
1628, when Jacqueline Pascal was three years old. 

lis XIII. 's queen was Anne of Austria. She 
seems to have been chiefly remarkable for two per- 
sonal peculiarities. One of these was an exceedingly 
delicate sense of feeling in all parts of the surface of 



A Home in Auvergne. n 

her body, so that all ordinary linen and cambric was 
rough to her, and it was exceedingly difficult to find 
fabrics fine enough for her use. How fortunate that 
she was a queen, and not a peasant woman, doomed 
to die of homespun ! 

Her other distinguishing peculiarity was such an 
aversion to roses that she could not even look upon 
a painted one. 

Altogether she seems an uninteresting, indeed 
rather a disagreeable woman, and we do not much 
wonder that her husband was content to live the 
greater part of their married life in complete separa- 
tion from her. 

Louis himself was a respectable and honest man, 
and that is saying a good deal for a king. He was 
not fond of ruling, and, indeed, had little chance for 
it, but he was full of bravery and self-possession in 
war, and much honored and admired by the soldiery. 
His morals were not corrupt, and for purity and true 
nobility his court was a happy contrast to that of his 
more brilliant son, Louis XIV. When, after twenty- 
two years of married life, this son and heir was born, 
there was the greatest rejoicing throughout the 
kingdom. 

Thus matters stood in France. Across the Chan- 
nel Charles I. was on the throne, and Archbishop Laud 
endeavoring to act in England something correspond- 
ing to the part which Richelieu was acting in France. 



Sister and Saint 



The Puritans were stirring. Every day they grew 
more powerful, and were soon to break into open re- 
bellion. Already some had left the country, for as 
we well know, the Mayflower had anchored off Plym- 
outh Rock in 1620, five years before Jacqueline Pas- 
cal was born. 

There were no daily newspapers in those days. 
But we may well believe that the table-talk of an in- 
telligent family like the Pascals would now and then 
fall upon these themes. Their father would, perhaps, 
tell them some fresh report from the Dutch colony at 
New Amsterdam, or the English in Massachusetts or 
Virginia, or their own French settlements in Lou- 
isiana. They were faithful little Catholics and all 
Puritan proceedings would be sure to strike them with 
abhorrence, but we can imagine their delight, never- 
theless, in some of the strange, wild stories, and alto- 
gether it must have been an interesting world out 
at which they looked from their quiet home in 
Clermont. 



POETRY AND GEOMETRY. 



II. 



POETRY AND GEOMETRY. 



WE have a record of Jacqueline's early years 
in Gilberte's little book, entitled "A 
Sketch of the Life of Sister Jacqueline de 
Sainte Euphemie, by birth Jacqueline Pascal. " 

" I was six years older than she," says the writer, 
"and can remember that as soon as she began to 
speak, she gave signs of great intelligence, besides 
being very beautiful and of a kindly and sweet tem- 
per, the most winning in the world. She was, there- 
fore, as much loved and caressed as a child could pos- 
sibly be. At seven years old she began to learn to 
read, and, by my father's wish, I became her teacher. 
This was a troublesome task, on account of her great 
aversion to it, and do what I would, I could not coax 
her to come and say her lesson. One day, however, 
I chanced to be reading poetry aloud, and the rhythm 
pleased her so much that she said to me : ' If you 
want me to read, teach me out of a verse-book, and I 

(15) 



1 6 Sister and Saint. 

will say my lesson as often as you like/ This surprised 
me, for I did not think that a child of her age could 
distinguish verse from prose. I did as she wished, 
and after that time she was always talking about 
verses, and learned many by heart, for she had an 
excellent memory. She wanted to know the rules of 
poetry, and at eight years old, before knowing how 
to read, she began to compose lines that were really 
not bad." 

Before this time the family had moved to Paris. 
In 1 63 1, when Jacqueline was six years old, Blaise 
eight, and Gilberte twelve, their father made this 
change of residence on account of the greater facilities 
for education in the capital. Since the death of his 
wife he had considered himself especially responsible 
for the rearing of his children, and devoted himself to 
them with almost a mother's tenderness. He taught 
them not only language, science, and belles lettres, but 
grounded them thoroughly and systematically in re- 
ligious truth, as he understood it. His son's educa- 
tion he took entirely into his own hands, Pascal never 
entering any college or having any other master than 
his father. 

In order to attend thus particularly to his children, 
Etienne Pascal was obliged to give up business, and 
on leaving Clermont he sold his office of President of 
the Excise Court, and invested largely in stocks of 
the Hotel de Ville in Paris, one of Cardinal Riche- 



Poetry and Geometry. ij 

lieu's speculations. He did not, however, give up his 
house and other property in Clermont, and the fam- 
ily returned occasionally to their native place. 

In Paris the children entered at once upon a pleas- 
ant and busy life. 

Gilberte says of Jacqueline at this time, " She was 
so pretty a child, and so agreeable, that she became 
a general favorite, in request with all our friends, and 
spent but little of her time at home. 

" She had, in particular, two playmates who con- 
tributed not a little to her enjoyment. They were 
the daughters of Madame de Saintot, and themselves 
made verses, though not much older than Jacqueline ; 
so that in the year 1636, when my father took me 
with him on a journey to Auvergne, and Madame de 
Saintot begged that she might keep my sister with 
her while we were gone, the three little girls took it 
into their heads to act a play, and composed plot and 
verses, without the least aid from any one else. It 
was, however, a coherent piece, and had five acts, di- 
vided by scenes regularly arranged. They performed 
it themselves twice, with some other actors whom 
they invited, before a large company. Everybody 
wondered that such children should be capable of 
constructing a complete work, and many pretty things 
were discovered in it, so that it became the talk of all 
Paris for a long time." 

The story goes on, and though we may suspect it 



iS Sister and Saint. 

of a little pardonable sisterly partiality, it is so fresh 
and natural that we can but quote : 

" My sister continued to make verses about any- 
thing that came into her head, as well as on all extra- 
ordinary occurrences. 

" When the Queen was expecting an heir, she did 
not fail to write on so fine a subject, and these verses 
were better than any of her previous efforts. We 
lived at that time very near Monsieur and Madame 
de Morangis (a gentleman and lady of the court), 
who took so much delight in the child's pretty ways 
that she was with them nearly every day. 

" Madame de Morangis, charmed with the idea of 
Jacqueline's having written verses on the Queen's situ- 
ation, said that she would take her to St. Germain and 
present her. She kept her word, and on their arrival, 
the queen being at the moment engaged, every one 
surrounded the little girl, in order to question her 
and see her verses." 

Jacqueline was so small and so simple in her ways 
that the ladies felt a little suspicious as to her being 
the actual author of the lines. Mademoiselle de 
Montpensier, niece of the king, then a young girl, 
afterward " the great Mademoiselle," was one of the 
company. 

" If you can make verses so well," she said to 
Jacqueline, " make some for me," 

The little girl went quietly into a corner and wrote 



Poetry and Geometry. ig 

the following, evidently composed on the spur of the 
moment : 

" It is our noble princess* will, 
That thou, my Muse, exert thy skill 
To celebrate her charms to-day : 
Hopeless our task !— the only way 
To praise her well is to avow 
The simple truth — we know not how ! " 

" Now make one for Madame de Hautefort," said 
Mademoiselle, and Jacqueline in a few minutes read 
them this impromptu effort : 

" Oh, marvel not, bright masterpiece of earth, 
At the prompt tribute by your charms called forth. 
Your glance that roves the world around 
In every clime hath captives found. 
That ray which charms my youthful heart, 
May well arouse my fancy's art." 

The child, we see, has already caught the courtly 
trick of flattery, and the lines, to us, seemed stilted 
and artificial. But we must remember that they are 
French poetry, and French poetry of the seventeenth 
century as well as the production of a little girl. 

" Soon after this incident/' goes on Gilberte's 
story, "permission was given to enter the queen's 
apartment, and Madame de Morangis led my sister 
in. The Queen was surprised at her poetry, but fan- 
cied at first that it was either not her own, or that 
she had been greatly aided. All present thought the 



20 Sister and Saiut. 

same, but Mademoiselle removed their doubts by 
showing them the two epigrams that Jacqueline had 
just made in her presence and by her own orders. 
This circumstance increased the general admiration. 
and from that day forward my sister was often at 
court, and much caressed by the King, the Queen, 
Mademoiselle, and all who saw her. She even had 
the honor of waiting on her Majesty when she dined 
in private, Mademoiselle taking the place of chief 
butler." 

Jacqueline was not the only member of the family 
admitted to the presence of the great. Soon after 
they came to Paris, M.- Pascal had taken all his chil- 
dren to see the cardinal. Cousin tells us of this in- 
terview that " Richelieu's eagle glance at once selected 
these children from among the waiting crowd in his 
audience -chamber. Struck with their remarkable 
youthful beauty, he did not wait for the father to 
introduce them to his notice. He himself, after ad- 
dressing them, commended them to their father's 
special care, and said, i I intend to make something 
great of them." M 

Richelieu was a good promiser. Something great 
was made of them, but it was by no means he who 
did it. 

In 1638, when Jacqueline was thirteen years old, a 
little collection of her poems was published, dedi- 
cated to the Queen, Anne of Austria. Several of the 



Poetry and Geometry. 21 

pieces are addressed to this royal patroness ; some 

are odes in honor of the Virgin and of St. Cecilia, 

and there is quite an array of short epigrams and 

love-songs, which seem strangely unnatural for a 

child of that age, and utterly unlike herself as we 

afterward know her. But that the little creature 

took a serious view of her gift, and exercised it with 

that conscientiousness which later became so strong 

a characteristic, is evident from these 

" Stanzas thanking God for the power of writing 

Poetry. ,, 

" Lord of the universe, 
If the strong chains of verse 
Round my delighted soul their links entwine, 
Here let me humbly own 
The gift is Thine alone, 
And comes, great God, from no desert of mine. 

" Yea, Lord, how many long 

For the sweet power of song, 
Which Thou hast placed in my young feeble heart ; 

Thy bounties string my lyre, 

And, with celestial fire, 
To my dull soul a hidden light impart. 

tl O Lord, a thankless mind 

Will not acquittal find 
In Thy pure presence. Therefore it is just 

That, touched with godlike flame, 

I should Thy love proclaim, 
And chant the glories of Thy Name august. 

" As waterfalls, and rills, 
And streams wind past the hills 
In steady progress toward their parent sea, 



Sister and Saint. 



Thus, Lord, my simple lays, 
Heedless of this world's praise, 
Find their way home, O Source Divine, to Thee ! " 

Dear little girl ! " Heedless of this world's praise ! " 
That was the secret of her charm and the key-note 
of her character. Many a child has been ruined by 
less flattering attentions than she received. But she 
took all with a simple unconsciousness, that reminds 
one of the "little child set in the midst," from whom 
as a text the Great Teacher preached so grand a ser- 
mon. She did not ignore her gift — " the sweet power 
of song " — perhaps even valued it more highly than 
it merited, but it did not fill her soul with vanity. 
It was not hers — it was a " gift." 

"Though she wrote so much," says Gilberte, " and 
received so much attention, she did not lose in the 
least her gay good-humor. She amused herself most 
heartily with her playmates in all childish games, and 
when alone, played with her dolls." 

All this time Blaise was keeping up his studies, and 
distinguishing himself as much in science as Jacque- 
line in verse. 

A girl as bright as she could not have been an 
uninterested looker-on at her brother's investigations 
and achievements. 

We may safely conclude that the favorite little 
sister was not far away during his experiments on 
the nature of sound when he was about eleven years 



Poetry and Geometry. 23 

old. One day at table some one struck a china plate 
with a knife, producing, of course, a resonant vibra- 
tion. But when a hand was placed on the plate the 
vibration suddenly ceased. " Why is this ?" asks the 
youthful philosopher, for "his earliest search," says 
his sister Gilberte^ " is for truth. He must always 
have a reason that will satisfy his mind, and if none 
such is given him, he will not rest till he finds one for 
himself." 

The answers of his elders, in the matter of the 
plate, did not satisfy him, and henceforth began a 
series of experiments on the laws of sound more 
systematic, if not less tuneful, than those of most 
boys of eleven, on the same subject. In the course 
of a few weeks he had noticed so many interesting 
facts that he wrote a treatise on the subject, which 
has been found by scientific men to be tout a fait bun 
raissonne\ 

A year later the boy was engaged in his famous 
geometrical investigations. 

The story is, that seeing his strong bent toward 
mathematics, his father had purposely led his mind 
to other subjects, and, in fact, at last prohibited the 
study of geometry till after he had perfected himself 
in Latin and Greek. He gave him, however, in 
answer to repeated questions, the bare definition of 
the science as one that treated of " forms and their 
proportions and relations one to another/' 



24 Sister and Saint. 

On that hint Blaise went to work. In his hours of 
recreation he meditated on forms, and began to draw 
figures in charcoal on the walls of a large empty 
hall which had been given the children as a play- 
room. He made, at first, perfect circles, exact squares, 
and then a triangle whose sides and whose angles were 
equal, proving each step as he went along. All this 
was without a hint from any one, and he did not 
even know the names of the figures he drew. He 
called a circle "a round," and a line "a bar." 

From his definitions sprang axioms, and from these 
demonstrations, and going from step to step, he had 
pushed his researches as far as the thirty-second 
proposition of the first book of Euclid before he was 
discovered. When his father found him proving that 
" the three angles of a triangle are together equal to 
two right angles," his question was, What had made 
him think of that ? Oh, it followed from that other, 
said the boy ; and the same question being asked in 
regard to that other, it was found that that followed 
from another earlier discovered truth. And, in this 
way, tracing his way back to first principles, his 
father saw how he had actually built up the science 
for himself out of a single definition. 

As might be supposed, M. Pascal after this thought 
it right to remove the restriction on geometry, and 
gave his son a copy of Euclid's " Elements" for light 
reading. He insisted still, however, on the languages 



Poetry and Geometry. 25 

as the principal and most serious work. But such 
was the boy's delight in mathematics that he con- 
tinued to prove and even to compose propositions for 
his own amusement. 

After a time his father occasionally took him to 
the weekly meeting of scientific friends, out of which 
association the celebrated " Academy of Sciences " 
afterward grew. Descartes, Roberval, Pailleur, and 
others whose names are familiar to the scientist were 
members of this circle and habitues of M. Pascal's 
house. At these meetings the boy Pascal is said to 
have held his own in solving problems sent from 
similar associations in Italy, Germany, Holland, and 
other countries, and in offering original problems for 
solution, and so clear and quick was his intellect that 
he often discovered mistakes which no one else had 
noticed. Sometimes he read short essays of his own, 
and about the time Jacqueline's verses were pub- 
lished, he wrote in Latin a treatise on Conic Sec- 
tions, which was considered very remarkable. Gil- 
berte reports : " It was said that since the time of 
Archimedes, nothing of such strength had appeared. 
People skilled in such things said that it was a con- 
tribution of permanent value to science, and thought 
it should certainly be published. But my brother had 
no desire for reputation. He took no interest in the 
matter, and it was never printed." 
2 



THE CARDINAL FROWNS ; THE 
CARDINAL SMILES. 



III. 



THE CARDINAL FROWNS ; THE CARDINAL SMILES. 



THE Pascals, one would say, were now at the 
very highest point of prosperity. They had 
wealth and position. They had the friend- 
ship of Royalty. They had the most congenial in- 
timate friends, and a wide circle of distinguished ac- 
quaintance in the most brilliant city of the world. 
The son and heir was already giving extraordinary 
promise of remarkable and varied capacities — fairly 
on his way to the place Sir William Hamilton gives 
him as " a miracle of universal genius." The daugh- 
ters seem endowed with loveliness and talent in 
equal parts. Surely M. Pascal ought to have been a 
proud and happy man ! 

This prosperity, moreover, was accompanied by 
that which alone makes other good things worth 
having. The glitter of the world seems never to 
have dazzled these wise people, even when they en- 
joyed it most. They saw about them many false and 

(29) 



Sister and Saint. 



hollow lives, many low ambitions, many weak, if 
not evil characters. And these all were surrounded 
by that bewildering halo — worldly success. But the 
Pascals looked calmly on ! They had before their 
eyes a vastly higher ideal of life and of success. 
They walked in the world, but, to a wonderful de- 
gree, they "kept unspotted." They were, in fact, 
possessed of true nobility, and baseness, although 
they touched it, could not cling to them. 

Later, religious devotion became their most prom- 
inent characteristic. Now, great mental activity was 
predominant. Yet, even at this time, a writer of the 
day tells us that they were always regarded as " un- 
usually religious people. In this respect they took 
the lead of the society in which they moved." But 
the Pascals were going on — still higher ! and great 
heights are not scaled without difficulty. 

France just now was at war with Spain, and the 
cardinal was in need of money. No easier way to 
get it than to take it from the pockets of loyal Paris- 
ians ! And where this could not be done with a show 
of legality it could be done, and was done, by arbi- 
trary seizure of private property. 

M. Pascal was one of many who suffered in this 
way. His property, at this time, consisted largely of 
shares in the Hotel de Ville, and his income, of 
course, was much reduced when Richelieu seized 
these bonds. He was not a man to take injustice 



The Cardinal Frowns ; the Cardinal Smiles. 31 

without an attempt at setting himself right. With 
others among the principal stockholders he remon- 
strated, appearing before the Chancellor of the city to 
make complaint, in March, 1638. The Chancellor, 
frightened, went to Richelieu, and Richelieu ordered 
the malcontents arrested and sent to the Bastile. 

M. Pascal escaped this fate, but only by flight. He 
traveled incognito to his old home in Auvergne, and 
shortly after he left Paris the halberdiers came to 
look for him and were shown by Gilberte all over the 
house. " He had been much comforted/' writes Gil- 
berte, " under this affliction by Jacqueline's endearing 
ways. He loved her with unusual tenderness. " 

The father remained away through the whole sum- 
mer, but in September he forgot all fear and hastened 
home again. His little daughter, Jacqueline, was 
seized with small-pox. 

" Let the risk be what it might/' says the family 
chronicler, " my father said he must then be at home 
in order to watch with his own eyes the course of her 
illness. And in reality he never left her for a mo- 
ment, not even sleeping out of her room." 

It was a long and serious case, and though the little 
girl recovered after many anxious weeks, "her coun- 
tenance was quite disfigured, and she did not leave 
the house during the whole winter, not being fit to 
appear in company. She was then thirteen, old 
enough to value beauty, and to regret its loss. And 



Sister and Saint. 



yet, this mischance did not in the least trouble her ; on 
the contrary, she considered it a mercy, and in some 
verses composed as a thank-offering for recovery, she 
said that her pitted face seemed to her the guardian 
of her innocence, and these traces of disease certain 
signs that God would keep her from evil. Though 
she was confined to the house, her time did not hang 
heavily, for she was busy with her trinkets and 
dolls. ,, 

The stanzas alluded to — " thanking God for recov- 
er}' from the small-pox" — are rather sad for a little 
girl of thirteen, and not remarkably pretty. But their 
spirit is very sweet. These three verses will serve as 
a sample : 

" All men, great God, may see 
Thy pure benignity 

To one so weak and worn ; 
Without Thy loving aid 
Thus wondrously displayed, 
My life had faded in its April morn. 

" When, in the mirror, I 
Scars of mine illness spy, 

Those hollow marks attest 
The heart-rejoicing truth, 
That I am Thine, in sooth, 
For Thou dost chasten whom Thou lovest best. 

" I take them for a brand 
That, Master, Thy kind hand 

Would on my forehead leave, 



The Cardinal "Frowns ; the Cardinal Smiles. 33 

Mine innocence to show : — 
And shall I murmur? No. 
While Thy rod comforts me I will not grieve." 

As soon as Jacqueline's recovery was secure, M. 
Pascal was obliged to exile himself once more. 
Whether the cardinal had been aware of his return, 
and with a little softening remembrance of the pretty 
children he had noticed in his audience-chamber, had 
winked at the fact, or whether the Pascals had suc- 
ceeded in eluding his vigilance, we do not know. At 
any rate, they seem to have been entirely unmolested, 
and, in spite of Jacqueline's sad illness, to have passed 
many happy moments together. 

But as soon as danger was over their father left 
them and spent the winter in Clermont. Some of 
the letters that passed between him and the children 
have been preserved, and toward spring there was 
truly something worth writing about. 

The cardinal had taken a fancy to have a little play 
acted before him, and Jacqueline had been invited to 
take part in it ! 

From this it would seem that the little girl must 
have been getting better fast, and that she was not 
so seriously disfigured by her illness as was appre- 
hended at first. Gilberte objects to her taking part 
in the play, not on the ground of health, but from a 
very natural unwillingness to favor Richelieu. 

"The cardinal has not been so kind to us as to 
2* 



Sister and Saint. 



lead us to take any pains for his pleasure/' she an- 
swered proudly, when the Duchess d'Aiguillon came 
to ask for Jacqueline's services. 

The Duchess d'Aiguillon was Richelieu's niece. 
She was a kind-hearted woman, and to her kindness 
she added a ready tact in humoring her uncle, which 
often enabled her to procure favors for those who 
had suffered by him. She knew, of course, all about 
the Pascals, and she saw a possible chance of M. 
Pascal's forgiveness and recall, if his little daughter 
should succeed in pleasing the cardinal. 

On that ground she urged Gilberte to give her con- 
sent, and promised, meanwhile, to use every oppor- 
tunity that presented itself of speaking a good word 
for her father. Gilberte still hesitated, but after ask- 
ing the advice of some of her father's best friends 
she yielded, and Jacqueline forthwith began to study 
her part. It is mentioned, as a proof of the cardi- 
nal's false taste, that this play was not one of the 
masterpieces of French art, but a second-rate epheme- 
ral tragi-comedy. What part Jacqueline took we do 
not know, but whatever it was, with so much at stake, 
she would be sure to enter into it with all her heart ; 
moreover, she conceived the idea of playing a little 
private role of her own, and at once set her wits to 
work as to the best way of presenting that. 

Her well-beloved talent for verse-making came to 
her aid, and she composed and committed to memory 
the following lines : 



The Cardinal Froivns ; the Cardinal Smiles. 35 

" O marvel not, Armand*, the great, the wise, 
If I have slightly pleased thine ear — thine eyes ; 
My sorrowing spirit torn by countless fears, 
Each sound forbiddeth save the voice of tears ; 
With power to please thee, wouldst thou me inspire — 
Recall from exile, now, my hapless sire." 

The play came off on the evening of the third of 
April, 1639, in Richelieu's palace at Ruel. 

" Jacqueline put into her action," says the Abbe 
Bossut, " a grace and a finesse which ' carried away ' 
all the spectators, especially the cardinal himself, and 
she had the adroitness to profit by this moment of 
enthusiasm/' 

The rest of the story we will let Jacqueline herself 
tell in a letter she wrote her father the next day : 

" M. le cardinal appeared to take great pleasure in 
the representation, especially when I spoke. He 
laughed very much and so did the whole company. 
When the play was finished, I came down from the 
stage to speak to Madame d'Aiguillon. 

" But as the cardinal seemed about to leave, I went 
up to him at once, and recited to him the verses I 
send you. He received them with extraordinary- 
affection and caresses, more than you can imagine. 
At first, when he saw me coming, he called out, 
' Voila la petite Pascal ! ' Then he embraced me 
and kissed me, and while I said my verses, he con- 
tinued to hold me in his arms, and kissed me almost 



*Armand is Richelieu's family name. 



56 Sister and Saint, 



every minute with great satisfaction. And then, 
when I was done, he said, ' Yes, I grant to you all that 
you ask ; write to your father that he can return with 
safety.' 

" Thereupon Madame d'Aiguillon approached, and 
spoke to the cardinal. l Truly it would be well, sir, 
that you should do something for this gentleman. I 
have heard him spoken of as a thoroughly honorable 
and learned man, and it is a pity he should be useless 
to the government. Then he has a son who is very 
learned in mathematics, though only fifteen years old/ 

" The cardinal again assured me that I might tell 
you to return in all safety ; and as he seemed in such 
good humor, I asked him further, if you might come 
yourself to pay your thanks and respects to his emi- 
nence. He said you would be welcome ; and after- 
wards, while talking of something else, he repeated, 
' Tell your father when he returns, to come and see 
me. ' This he said three or four times. 

"After this, as Madame d'Aiguillon was going 
away, my sister went forward to take leave of her. 
She received her with many caresses, and inquired 
for our brother, whom she said she wished to know. 
So he was introduced to the duchess, and she paid 
him many compliments on his scientific attainments. 

" We were then conducted to a room where we had 
a magnificent collation of dried sweetmeats, lemon- 
ade, fruits, and such things. 



The Cardinal Frowns ; the Cardinal Smiles. 37 

" Here the duchess renewed her caresses in a manner 
you will hardly believe. In short, I can not tell you 
how much honor I received, for I am obliged to write 

as briefly as possible As for me, I feel myself 

extremely happy to have in any way assisted in a re- 
sult which must give you satisfaction. It is what has 
always been the passionate wish of, M. my father, 
your very humble and obedient daughter and servant 

" Pascal." 

After a long winter of convalescence in the house, 
more or less tedious even with trinkets and dolls to 
beguile the time, this evening of brilliant success, of 
" sweetmeats and lemonade/' above all, of the accom- 
plishment of her dearest hopes, must have been a 
wonderful thing to the little girl. 

Gilberte tells the story a little differently, and ac- 
cepting Cousin's opinion that " nothing should be 
neglected which will help us to become acquainted 
with this remarkable family," we give her version 
also : 

"After the play Jacqueline came down to go with 
Madame de Saintot to the duchess, who was going to 
present her to the cardinal ; but Madame de Saintot 
loitered, and seeing M. le cardinal rise as if to retire, 
Jacqueline ran up to him all alone. When he saw 
her coming he sat down again, took her on his 
knees, and when he kissed her again and again, she 



3S Sister and Saint. 

began to weep. He asked her what was the matter. 
Then she said her verse which Madame d'Aiguillon 
followed with many obliging words ; upon which M. 
le cardinal said that he would grant the return of her 
father. Then this little one, all of herself, without 
any one knowing that she had thought of it, said : 
1 My lord, I have still one favor to ask of your emi- 
nence/ M. le cardinal was so captivated with the 
delicacy of this little liberty that he answered : 'Ask 
anything you wish, I will give it you/ She said to 
him : ' I beg, your eminence, that my father may 
have the honor of doing you reverence when he re- 
turns, and of thanking you for the favor you have 
done us to-night/ The cardinal said : ' I not only 
grant it, I wish it. Tell him to come with all assur- 
ance, and to bring his family with him/ " 

Gilberte simply adds that on her father's return he 
did go to thank the cardinal, and took them all with 
him. But another account tells us that he went first 
without his family, and when his name was an- 
nounced Richelieu inquired if the gentleman was 
alone. Hearing that he was, the servant was in- 
structed to tell him that he could not have an audi- 
ence till he came accompanied by his family. The 
next day M. Pascal took all the children and was 
most graciously received. 

The cardinal after this treated him " handsomely/' 
but he never gave him back his bonds. 



INTO NORMANDY. 



IV. 

INTO NORMANDY. 

a YEAR of which we have no record now 
passed — a year, probably, of quiet happiness 
with our friends. There were the studies to 
be gone on with, and the good father was at home to 
be once more their teacher, and, though they were 
not so rich as they once had been, there were plenty 
of pleasures left. 

But " in 1640," writes Gilberte, "my father, having 
been made colleague of M. de Paris, in the Intend- 
ancy of Normandy, was obliged to go to Rouen, and 
soon took us all there to live with him." 

The office of Intendant was much like that of col- 
lector of customs with us. It was an honorable posi- 
tion, and a proof of Richelieu's continued friendliness. 
But in this case it was rather a difficult post, for 
Normandy was in a state of agitation and, in some 
parts, of open revolt. A new system of taxation had 

caused an insurrection of the peasantry in the neigh 

(41) 



4 2 Sister and Saint. 

borhood of Rouen, the rebels had defied the local 
authorities, destroyed the custom-house, and murdered 
some of the collectors. 

M. Pascal and his colleague set out from Paris at- 
tended by a body of troops under Gassion, who is 
mentioned as a tierce man and a noted Calvinism'' 
On their entrance into Rouen they were met by an 
excited mob, through which they forced their way in 
the narrow winding streets, not without some blood- 
shed. 

It was not an easy task to set to rights the public 
records and accounts, and the wide-awake Blaise con- 
ceived the idea of coming to his father's aid by the 
invention of a calculating machine. The notion was 
timely though the execution was not ; for it was 
several years before he succeeded. The inventor's 
enthusiasm, however, never flagged, and in 1649, long 
after the necessity which had originally suggested it 
was past, the wonderful little instrument was pat- 
ented. It was the parent of all the " adders" the 
world has since seen, and about as useful, practically, 
as the rest of them have proved. " The construction 
of such a machine/' says a writer in the North British 
Review, " was a much more troublesome task than its 
contrivance, and Pascal not only injured his constitu- 
tion, but wasted the most valuable portion of his 
life in his attempts to bring it to perfection." 

The father's work, meanwhile, as we have said, 



Into Normandy. 43 

was done. And it was well done. M. Pascal's ac- 
curacy and, above all, his strict integrity in this diffi- 
cult business is matter of comment on the part of 
more than one writer. He forbade his subordinates 
to accept the smallest gratuity, and discharged his 
secretary, a relative, for receiving a louis d'or. 

As soon as Rouen was reduced to order, the family 
came to join their father, and here, in the same year, 
Gilberte was married to Florin Perier, a distant 
cousin of her father's. After her marriage she re- 
mained two years in Rouen, and then returned to the 
old home at Clermont. The other lived seven or 
eight years in Rouen ; and for Jacqueline, opening 
womanhood here seems as full of brilliant promise as 
childhood in Paris. 

Rouen was, and is, a most interesting city. Every- 
body stops there a few hours in making the journey 
between London and Paris. Everybody knows it as 
the most accessible clustering point of many fine 
specimens of rich mediaeval Norman architecture. 
But when the city's five hundred bells pealed out 
on festival mornings in 1640, and Jacqueline Pascal 
threaded her way among churches and towers through 
the narrow streets to early Mass, a charm more sa- 
cred possessed her heart than that which can thrill 
the modern tourist at the same sound. The beauti- 
ful cathedral, with its glowing windows and spring- 
ing arches, was to her not merely a sight to be seen,-— 



44 Sister and Saint. 

it was " none other than the house of God — the gate 
of heaven/' 

Sometimes Jacqueline must have crossed the old 
fish-market, and stopped, perhaps, for a moment be- 
side the dripping fountain. The spot had already its 
history, though it was without its commemorative 
statue and its present inspiring name of " Place de 
la Pucelle." And there must have come to Jacque- 
line a nearer and more vivid thought than we can 
ever have, of the brave, pure girl who, two hundred 
years before, had there suffered at the stake because 
she would not swear to what she did not believe. 
Did a hint of what would one day be asked of her- 
self ever cross Jacqueline's mind? And did a subtle 
inspiration of candor, enthusiasm, and courage come 
to her from the speaking stones of that dingy square ? 
Undoubtedly ; — for of such unsuspected influences are 
molded all our lives. 

Rouen in 1640 was interesting not only from asso- 
ciations of the past. Its condition at that time was 
flourishing, its business good, its social advantages 
next, perhaps, to those of Paris. Corneille was living 
there, "and did not fail to visit us soon," says Gil- 
berte. 

To many modern readers, the name of Corneille is 
associated with school days — with dictionary and 
foot-notes blurring, rather than making clear, the 
beauties of his style. It is a little hard for such read- 



Into Normandy. 45 

ers to realize that he was a great poet — the Shake- 
speare of France — the father of the French classical 
drama. His greatest work, "The Cid," had been 
published in 1638, and he was at the height of his 
fame when the Pascals went to Rouen. 

The rather peculiar, "hasty-tempered and blunt " 
genius conceived a great liking for the poetess of 
fifteen whose youthful fame had probably preceded 
her. "He was ravished/' says Gilberte, "with the 
things which my sister wrote," and by his advice she 
undertook a prize poem. The city, according to 
time-honored custom, awarded a prize every year to 
the writer of the best poem on " The Conception of 
the Virgin." Probably Corneille had received it so 
often that he was thankful to find a possible succes- 
sor. At any rate, he urged Jacqueline to compete, 
and her effort, with others, was read to a great crowd 
in the market-place, on the festival celebrating the 
dogma in question. But " heedless," as in her child- 
hood, "of this world's praise," when the President of 
Ceremonies announced the awarding of the prize to 
Mdlle. Jacqueline Pascal, the successful competitor 
was not to be found, nor had she sent any repre- 
sentative to learn the decision. Her friend, Corneille, 
however, rose and gave a graceful and flattering ad- 
dress of thanks in her name. The next day the prize 
was brought to her house with drums, trumpets, and 
a grand procession, "Yet," says Gilberte, "she re- 



46 Sister and Saint. 

ceived it with remarkable indifference. She was so 
very simple that, though she was then fifteen years 
old, she always kept dolls, which she dressed and un- 
dressed with as much pleasure as if she had been only 
ten. We used to reproach her with this childishness, 
and we did so so much that at last she was obliged to 
give them up, though not without pain ; for she 
loved this diversion better than to take part in the 
grandest fetes in the city." 

After Gilberte and her husband left Rouen, Jac- 
queline took up her position as head of the family, 
and from that time till her twenty-first year led a life 
of cheerful activity which is pleasant to think of. 
Her brother's health now became delicate, bringing 
out sisterly carefulness, not, as yet, exciting grave 
anxiety. She studied with her father and brother, 
and read more history and philosophy than most girls 
of the seventeenth or of any century. And under 
the advice of her friend Corneille, she continued to 
write poetry. Some fugitive pieces of this period 
were collected after her death by her niece, Margaret 
Perier, and preserved among the annals of Port Royal, 
and Cousin has given us a few others. But no pub- 
lished collection of her poems during her lifetime 
followed the little volume of her thirteenth year. 

We give two or three short specimens of verses 
written at Rouen : 



Iitto Normandy. 47 



SERENADE. 

O pure and lovely Clarice, rise, 

Bid sleep depart from those sweet eyes ! 

We blame thee not, that through the day 
Thy charms should drive our peace away, 
Then is it just for thee to sleep 
While they who love thee vigil keep ? 

O mark the sorrows of my soul ! 
List to my sighs, and then console ; 
Or if thy heart I can not gain, 
Lend me thine ear while I complain, 
And since thy frowns forbid my sleep, 
Share thou the weary watch I keep ! 

DEVOTIONAL SONNET. 

O glorious Architect of earth and sea, 

Yet of frail man the Maker and the stay, 
Here at Thine altar's foot I humbly pray, 

Let Thy world-sheltering love encircle me. 

Well may my every hope be built on Thee, 

For I can hear, unmoved, the thunder's growl, 
Can brave, e'en demons and their whispers foul 

When my heart trusteth in Thy sure decree. 

But, ah ! the power of sin overwhelms my frame, 
Frustrates my wishes, makes my spirit tame, 
And dims the lustre of its zealous flame. 
Its languor pardon, Lord ! my strength uphold, 
Make my weak nature in Thy service bold, 
Let not Thy love in my faint heart wax cold ! 

The following is interesting, as showing that some 
of Jacqueline's associates must have been Protestants. 



48 Sister and Saint. 

Poor girl ! It is touching to see how she struggles 
between a natural affection for a lovely character and 
a horror of heretical doctrine : 

ON THE DEATH OF A HUGUENOT LADY. 

Friendly tears were never shed 
O'er a lovelier lady dead : 
Chloris was, in form and face, 
Grift ed. with angelic grace ; 
But in youth's enchanting bloom, 
Fate has laid her in the tomb. 

We have deeper cause to groan 
O'er her state a shade is thrown ; 
Anxious doubts our spirits chafe 
As we ask, " Can she be safe ? — 
She who died, remaining still 
A heretic in act and will ? " 

Doubt not, in the dying hour, 

That her strengthened soul had power, 

By afflictions purified, 

Every weight to cast aside, — 

Light celestial entering in, 

That she meekly owned her sin. 

And, O Lord, if earthly love 

Can Thy tender pity move, 

Hear the prayers we'll henceforth make 

In Thy temple for her sake 

Whom Thou didst create so fair, 

But who never worshiped there. 

Her ill-fated birth alone 
Caused the errors we bemoan ; 
Blinded by her zeal's excess, 
And her filial tenderness, 



Into Normandy. 49 

To the last she persevered 
In the faith her sire revered. 

Thou didst on her spirit shower 
Heavenly gifts, the precious dower 
Of the souls that love Thee best ; — 
Calm devotion filled her breast, 
And the flame of sacred love 
Raised her hopes to Thee above. 

Day by day her dearest care 
Was to serve her Lord by prayer. 
Could her faith so fruitful be 
If it were not given of Thee ? 
Shall the zeal Thou didst bestow 
Sink her in eternal woe-? 

In my dim and sinful state, 
Lord, I dare not penetrate 
Secrets that Thy wisdom hides, 
But Thy goodness yet abides ; — 
And Thine equitable will 
Is with mercy tempered still. 

Doubtless Jacqueline already took a lively interest 
in the great religious' questions which then agitated 
France and, indeed, all Europe. She could not have 
failed often to hear them discussed. At that time, 
and for about twenty years afterward, the Huguenots 
were tolerated, and many of the noblest families of 
the land openly avowed the reformed faith. Yet 
though treated with an outward show of respect they 
were never cordially regarded or fairly dealt with by 
eith_r Church or Court. At the bottom of all politi- 



5<3 Sister and Saint. 

cal turbulence boiled always these fierce religious 
disputes, and now and then all other issues would be 
forgotten and overwhelmed in their fur}'. Catholic 
and Huguenot armies had, for a century, in turn dev- 
astated the land. And even when times were most 
peaceful the great questions, in one shape or other, 
were working in men's minds. With Luther on one 
side and Calvin on the other, France could not escape 
these questions. Even the Church could not remain 
uninfluenced, and consciously or unconsciously, in 
small or in great degree, and with a thousand vary- 
ing shades of understanding, faithful Catholics were 
weighing the new thoughts, looking at truth in the 
new ways. Little did Jacqueline Pascal guess how 
near her the leaven was working ! 

Cousin, referring to these years in Rouen, says of 
our heroine : " Her personal attractions, her charming 
character, her modesty, her sprightliness, her talents, 
her reputation, made her the ornament of all the most 
elegant and distinguished society. She lived there 
till the middle of 1646, that is to say, till she was 
twenty years old, pious and regular, but without any 
exaggeration of these traits, far from the thought of 
becoming a nun, more than once sought in marriage, 
increasing in grace and in talent under the fostering 
wings of an incomparable family, among the friends 
of her father and her brother, and under the imme- 
diate guidance of the great Corneille, who was then 



Into Normandy, 51 



in all the force of his genius and in the full brilliancy 
of his glory." 

Gilberte affectionately reviews the same period in 
these words : 

" The reputation which she had acquired by the 
' gentillesses ' of her childhood did not diminish as she 
grew older ; on the contrary, it went on always aug- 
menting. She had the great qualities of every period 
of life. She was popular with all sorts of people, 
and those who were not intimate with her sought her 
acquaintance most eagerly. When she appeared in 
any company, you could see how every one rejoiced 
at her coming, and a little murmur of pleasure would 
rise ; and she always satisfied those who expected some- 
thing pleasant of her" 




A FLEMISH BISHOP. 



v.. 



A FLEMISH BISHOP. 



aND now let us turn away from Rouen for a 
time and look across low-lying fields and slow, 
broad streams, into a quiet bishop's study in 
Flanders. A little backward in time our glance must 
go, for, in 1638, that spring after Jacqueline Pascal 
had played her part so well before Richelieu, this 
bishop, Cornelius Jansen, died. Probably she had never 
heard of him at that time ; but two years afterward 
all Europe began to ring with his name, for his great 
book, the work of his life — the " Augustinus " — was 
then published. Twenty years the patient scholar 
had labored on this work, till the very life and 
essence of his being seemed absorbed into it, and the 
day he wrote the final page was the day of his death. 
Jansen was born in 1585, and educated for the 
priesthood at the Jesuit college of Louvain. There, 
when nineteen years old, he stood " first scholar of 
the university/' and always and everywhere scholar- 

(55) 



56 Sister and Saint. 

ship was his most prominent characteristic. He was 
one of those men who never look like themselves 
unless they have a book under their arm. His "dear 
delight " was patient investigation, comparison, criti- 
cism. His mind was not eager and grasping like 
Blaise Pascal's, but careful, searching, microscopic. 

In youth Jansen formed a lifelong friendship with 
a young Frenchman from Bayonne — Jean du Verger 
de Hauranne, afterward Abbe de St. Cyran, and 
known in history by that name. 

At Paris the friends studied theology together; 
and, to their surprise, they found theology to mean, 
not the science of God, but the writings of the school- 
men, endless and fruitless disputations, subtle casuis- 
tries, all sorts of intellectual puzzles and paradoxes. 
Both of the young men were fond of such mental 
gymnastics, and we have specimens of disquisitions 
written by each at about this time which seem to any 
straightforward, clear-thinking person the sheerest 
waste of the reasoning powers. But the minds of 
Jansen and St. Cyran were not only acute; they 
were earnest, sincere, devout. They soon saw that all 
this tilting and tourneying was but a sorry mockery 
of true Christian warfare. They longed for some- 
thing that went deeper ; and Jansen, walking in his 
garden, was often observed to lift his eyes to heaven 
and murmur, " Oh, truth ! truth ! " 

The friends made up their minds that pure doctrine 



A Flemish Bishop. 57 



could only be obtained by going back to the Fathers 
of the Church. And they went back — as far as St. 
Augustine ! If only it had occurred to them to go 
a little farther ! If only they had reached the purer 
streams fed more directly from the Fountain ! If 
only they had pushed their way to the "well of 
water " itself, and there drunk of the Truth for which 
they thirsted ! 

However, they went back to St. Augustine, and 
after leaving Paris, J.ansen made a six years' visit to 
his friend at Bayonne, where they pursued together 
the study of their chosen author. Jansen's health was 
most delicate and precarious, but he would pay no at- 
tention to his poor body. He studied almost without 
ceasing, seldom going to bed, his biographers tell us, 
but passing day and night in a large chair, fitted up 
with cushions and writing-desk. Here, when fatigue 
overcame him, he would rest and sleep for a time. 
His maximum of sleep was four hours out of the 
twenty-four. 

" My son," complained St. Cyran's careful mother, 
"you will certainly kill your good Fleming if you let 
him work so hard." But neither St. Cyran nor his 
mother could help it. 

The student's only answer to remonstrance was 
that he wished he had lived in the time of Joshua, 
when " the sun stood still in the midst of heaven," 
or that he could " follow the cranes in their north- 



58 Sister and Saint. 

ward flight and find places where the day should be 
nineteen or twenty hours long." 

It is a comfort to know that, between the chapters 
of St. Augustine, he allowed himself a game of bat- 
tledore and shuttlecock with St. Cyran, and that they 
attained great proficiency, sometimes scoring three or 
four thousand. 

At the end of six years the friends separated. Jan- 
sen went home to Flanders to take a professorship at 
Louvain, and afterward the bishopric of Ypres. At 
the same time he worked constantly on his beloved 
" Augustinus." Ten times, we are told, he carefully 
read through the whole body of St. Augustine's 
works. Thirty times he read certain parts, sifting, 
comparing, nicely weighing every word. Besides all 
this, he thoroughly studied every passage throughout 
the voluminous works of the other Fathers which 
bore in the least on the doctrines of St. Augustine. 
Truly, as the annalist of Port Royal temperately re- 
marks, " when we consider that Jansenius digested 
and arranged in twenty years the whole mass of sa- 
cred literature accumulated in thirteen centuries, it 
excites astonishment ! " 

At last, at the end of the twenty years, the schol- 
ar's meagre face begins to shine. For some days his 
servants notice that his countenance is illumined as 
with a great joy. He is putting the finishing touches 
to the work of his life. He is crowning the idol of 



A Flemish Bishop, 59 

his heart. " The burning joy consumes him," says 
Sainte-Beuve. He writes the final word. He is 
seized with the plague and dies in less than twenty- 
four hours."* 

His will, written half an hour before his death, 
thus disposes of his sole treasure, his precious book : 
" I now lay my work at the feet of his Holiness. I 
submit its contents to his decision, approving, con- 
demning, advancing, or retracting whatever shall be 
prescribed by the thunders of the Apostolic See." 
And so Cornelius Jansen left his work to follow him, 
and went on, we feel sure, to study more glorious 
truth than his heart had yet conceived. 

The world will always, and very justly, look at 
Jansen chiefly as a scholar. But he somewhat touch- 
ingly deprecates being thought " a mere pedant of 
the schools," and it is pleasant to see, by occasional 
flashes, that he is something more. Like many an- 
other silent, bookish man, he could show upon occa- 
sion great personal bravery. In his many disputes 
with the Jesuits he displayed an address and sagacity 
that surprised his best friends. What is more, he 
usually gained his point — a fact which the Jesuits 
never forgot and never forgave. 



* One account eulogizes Jansen's courage and devotion to the 
poor during the prevalence of the plague just before he died. But 
Sainte-Beuve declares his to have been an isolated instance of the 
disease, and suggests that it may have been communicated by some 
of the old manuscripts over which he pored, 



60 Sister and Saint. 

As bishop he was kind and accessible, always drop 
ping his pen with a beautiful alacrity at the call of 
the poor or distressed. 

His intimacy with St. Cyran reveals beneath the 
scholar's quiet breast another unsuspected thing — a 
well of simple tenderness, pure and deep. After the 
long stay together at Bayonne, Jansen writes to his 
friend that when the first letter came he was not 
alone, and was forced to imitate the patriarch Joseph 
and u go out and seek where to weep." After another 
visit, he alludes to the tears each shed at parting ; 
and again, speaking of an expected meeting, he joy- 
fully says that he is traveling toward his friend, and 
has arranged to " enter France with the month of 
May." 

An earnestness was given to this friendship by their 
common choice of Abraham as their model character. 
During their studies at Paris, they had been struck 
by the sublimity of Abraham's faith. They felt hum- 
bled before the man who, without the Church, with- 
out the saints and Mary, without the full knowledge 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, without even the Mosaic 
law, had so nearly attained obedience to the divine 
command, "Walk before me, and be thou perfect" 

This command they resolved to take for their own, 
and thus 

" Aiming at a star, 
Shot higher far than he that means a tree." 



A Flemish Bishop. 61 

And now about this great book of Cornelius Jan- 
sen's — -this " Augustinus." How many of us have ever 
seen it, or, indeed, heard of it before ? Sainte-Beuve 
says of it, that " no book of its calibre ever became so 
famous, while remaining so little known. " Another 
writer speaks of it as " celebrated almost alone for the 
evils it occasioned." The great majority of those who 
bore the name of Jansenist — gladly bore it to prison 
and to death — never read the ponderous tomes. 
Fewer still ever saw the man who wrote them. 

The " Augustinus" was written in Latin, and was, in 
short, a "tissue of texts from St. Augustine." These 
were arranged with consummate nicety and skill, so 
as to bring out the complete system of the Augustinian 
doctrines. 

It is not for this little book of ours to unfold these 
doctrines. Enough for us to know that they are, in 
effect, the system known to us as Calvinism. Enough 
for us to see, as we shall see in going on with this 
story, that the Jansenists, whatever their beliefs, were 
" a fountain of sweet waters in the midst of the brack- 
ish sea" — a " learned and religious society in the bo- 
som of the Catholic Church, who distinctly taught 
justification by faith, and were assiduously occupied 
in the dissemination of the Scriptures." Just a step 
more, and a very short step, too, and every one of 
them would have become that accursed thing, a 
Huguenot ! 



62 Sister and Saint. 

Indeed, as we shall see, they did come near enough 
this point to take their share of persecution. The 
Jesuits, with artifice all their own, distorted and ren- 
dered ambiguous certain parts of the " Augustinus," 
and then secured their condemnation by the pope. 
They dishonored and destroyed the author's tomb. 
They tortured and imprisoned his friends. 

Jansen's was, indeed, a singular destiny ! To give 
his name to, and be condemned for, a system of doc- 
trines not his own, but that of a recognized, canonized 
saint, and to be the exciting cause of bitter strife in 
which he took no part ! His own life, as we have 
seen, flowed still as the streams of his native land, 
and when the billows rose he was safe beyond their 
power in his eternal Home. 



THE DIRECTOR OF CONSCIENCES. 



VI, 



THE DIRECTOR OF CONSCIENCES. 



ST. CYRAN was a very different man from 
Jansen. He was charged to the full with 
that personal magnetism which his friend ut- 
terly lacked. He was a man of commanding pres- 
ence, " tall and majestic in form/' his biographers tell 
us, and of a very noble countenance. 

His " firm, penetrating eye," his gentleness and 
courtesy, and a certain elevation in his manners, com- 
bined to render him almost irresistible. His friends 
and followers were full of admiring enthusiasm for 
him, and, as they admired, he "silently^ but cer- 
tainly" governed them. 

When Jansen went back to Flanders after their six 
years' visit together at Bayonne, St. Cyran went to 
Poitiers, where he was appointed canon of the 
cathedral. He passed rapidly from one honorable 
position to another, the last being the abbacy of the 
monastery which gives him his name. But in five 

C&5) 



66 Sister and Saint. 

years from the time he left Bayonne, we find him in 
Paris living the life of a simple priest. He was a 
man of wealth and could live as he chose, and he 
chose retirement and simplicity. But greatness pur- 
sued him and would not let him go. He soon ac- 
quired reputation and influence as a confessor, or, as 
he much preferred to be called, " a director of con- 
sciences." 

Cardinal Richelieu had known St. Cyran in his 
youth, and he was keen enough to recognize now all 
the man's power. At the same time he did not love 
him any too well. For one thing, they did not agree 
on doctrinal points. Did not St. Cyran teach that 
love of God was essential to true faith, while Riche- 
lieu held that fear of punishment was all that was 
needed? And was he not known to have declared 
that absolution and remission of sins belong to God 
alone ? 

Moreover, it is said that St. Cyran knew some dis- 
reputable secrets in regard to the cardinal's life, 
which that prelate might well prefer not to have 
remembered by such a man. Under these circum- 
stances, Richelieu did just what we should have 
expected him to do. He tried St. Cyran first with 
craftiness, then with cruelty. 

St. Cyran was promptly introduced by the cardinal 
at court, as "the most learned man in Europe." 
This was a polite fiction, as both parties knew. It 



The Director of Consciences. 67 

would have been much nearer the truth if spoken of 
Jansen. 

Next, Richelieu offered him the position of first 
almoner to Henrietta of England, the French prin- 
cess who had married Charles the First. This was a 
most politic move. The office was honorable enough 
to satisfy almost any man's ambition, and, at the 
same time, it would remove St. Cyran — secrets and 
all — from the society where he was beginning to have 
such remarkable influence. But St. Cyran calmly 
declined the honor and thus avoided the snare. 

Eight bishoprics were then successively offered 
him, among them the very desirable ones of Cler- 
mont and Bayonne. After each of these offers, St. 
Cyran attended the cardinal's levee, and courteously 
thanked him for his kind intentions. But he never 
attended courtly festivities on other occasions, and 
withdrew himself more and more from the fashion- 
able society which had been so ready to welcome him. 

He took an humble lodging opposite the Carthusian 
convent and devoted himself to prayer, study, and 
charity. But it was like the leaven hidden in the 
meal. Obscurity only seemed to widen his influence. 
He was not seen among the guests of the wealthy, 
but here, in this modest retreat, he daily received 
visits from those who were wont to be found in the 
audience-chambers of the Palais Royal and the 
Louvre. 



6S Sister and Saint. 

He was a physician of souls, and many a pained 
and weary heart, half unconscious, perhaps, of its 
own ailment, and ignorant of the remedy, came here 
to him for help. With wonderful patience, tender- 
ness, and skill, though sometimes with a keen and 
painful probing, he laid bare the hidden disease and 
showed the way to the Healer. 

It was not only by the wealthy and fashionable 
that he was sought. The greatest thinkers of his 
time, lawyers, statesmen, scientists, priests, came to 
be directed by him, and, one by one, he led them 
away from their errors into the truth. 

Devout and thoughtful women who had been 
praying for years under the silent convent roof, and 
whose hearts God had been slowly opening, now 
heard of this new teacher, sent, as it seemed to them, 
from God, and came to put themselves under his 
guidance. 

Angelique and Agnes Arnauld, the celebrated 
sister abbesses of Port Royal (with whom through 
our friends, the Pascals, we are soon to become fa- 
miliar), early sought for themselves and their nuns St. 
Cyran's influence, and he became the regular spirit- 
ual director of their convent. 

Long ago, in their own Bibles and through their 
own enlightened consciences, partly, perhaps, though 
they never guessed it, through the influence of 
Huguenot relatives, these sisters had found out for 



The Director of Consciences. 69 

themselves something of this more excellent way. 
Now, how good it was to be confirmed and strength- 
ened by this holy man ! How wisely he instructed 
all these nuns, and helped them make of the dull 
routine of the convent a happy service for the Mas- 
ter's sake ! How he smoothed away intellectual 
doubts and difficulties for the more thoughtful ones ! 
How he helped and advised them in every way, and 
how warmly and womanly they all loved him ! 

But he was very sharp with them sometimes, so 
much so that Angelique (who, as we shall see, had 
some spirit of her own) one day said to him, " My 
father, it seems to me you are only gentle toward 
those who abuse your confidence and deceive you." 

When Marie-Claire, another of the Arnauld sisters, 
who had been very unjust to St. Cyran in a certain 
matter, came, at last, almost broken-hearted in her 
penitence, to make her humble confession, he stop- 
ped her. 

" We must find out," he said, " whether you exag- 
gerate your faults, and whether in the sight of God they 
are as great as you think them. We must look care- 
fully into this matter God is a Spirit, and 

spiritual sins grieve Him more than any others. 
Beware of exaggeration. We do not need any close 
scrutiny to remind us of our sins. Kneel before God 
without words, without anxious self-scrutiny. He 
will understand you." 



/O Sister and Saint. 

Another day when she was mourning over her sins, 
he said : " You must forget the past. If we were 
always obliged to think of our past sins, no one 
could be happy. He who has commanded us not to 
look back when we have put our hand to the plow, 
knows what is for our good." 

When Marie-Claire begged that she might as a 
penance, and in proof of her humility, be made a lay 
sister" for life, St Cyran sharply rebuked her. 

" You wish the future to be settled for you," he 
said. " I do not like that request. Those who be- 
long to God ought to have nothing absolutely settled 

and decided For myself, I do not want to 

know what I shall do when I leave this place. We 
are told to ask God for our bread (that is, for His 
grace), day by day ; but I should like to ask for it 

hour by hour It is contrary to the spirit of 

true humility to seek to do extraordinary things. 
There is no greater pride than in seeking to humil- 
iate ourselves beyond measure ; and sometimes there 
is no truer humility than to attempt great works for 
God." 

Many a word of wisdom taken direct from the 
good man's lips, and many a delightful anecdote of 
him or his distinguished friends, is recorded for us in 
Lancelot's charming " Memoires de St. Cyran." The 



* A lay-sister is one who performs the menial services of the 
convent. 



The Director of Consciences. 71 

pen is tempted to linger over them, but we must 
content ourselves with a very few. 

Notwithstanding his ordinarily cool and dignified 
demeanor, the good father had a very tender spot in 
his heart, especially toward the little ones. One day 
he bought a pot of preserved quinces for a little girl 
among the novices at Port Royal, a daughter of his 
particular friend, d'Andilly. But on the way to the 
convent, scruples overcame him lest " the sweets of 
earth should destroy her taste for the sweets of 
heaven." He resolved not to offer the gift, and hid 
it under the folds of his mantle. But when he 
reached the house and was told that the little girl 
was not feeling well that day, love overcame his 
caution, and the quinces were sent to her room at 
once. 

A conscientious nun once came to him very much 
exercised in regard to the faults of a certain sister 
nun. Surely these were very wrong proceedings. 
Should she speak of them ? " Be silent for three 
months," said the director of consciences. At the 
end of three months she reminded him that the time 
had elapsed. Might she tell now ? " No," said he, 
" be silent for the rest of your life." 

De Sericourt, who had been a military man, after 
his conversion asked St. Cyran to teach him how to 
pray. " You know soldiers are not much instructed 
on this point," he said. 



J 2 Sister and Saint* 

St. Cyran placed his hands together, bowed his 
head, and then lifted his eyes to heaven. " This, sir, 
is all we have to do," he said. " We have only to 
appear humbly before God, and remember that He 
is looking down upon us." De Sericourt says that 
his master's devout look and these simple words were 
better than all the books of devotion in the world. 

To his learned body of " Recluses," all of them, in 
spite of their religious ardor, more or less ambitious 
of literary fame, St. Cyran one day said : " Jesus 
Christ has written nothing; and He shows us there- 
by that the sublimity of godliness can only be 
worthily represented by living acts," 

As may easily be seen, a man teaching such pure 
and undefiled religion as this, and exercising such a 
powerful and wide-spread influence, was an element 
not very desirable to a corrupt Church. 

The Jesuits hated him as heartily as Richelieu did, 
and that not merely on doctrinal grounds, but also 
from a very natural feeling of jealousy and envy. 

Up to this time the schools of the Jesuits had 
enjoyed great celebrity. The education of the higher 
classes had been almost entirely in their hands. But 
now, among St. Cyran's friends there were many per- 
sons of rank and fortune who wished equal advan- 
tages for their children without the contamination of 
Jesuitical principles. 

They consulted St. Cyran, and, under his personal 



The Director of Consciences. 73 

direction, a number of little schools in and about 
Paris were opened. 

There were plenty of men of talent among his 
disciples to take the place of teachers. Nicole, 
Lancelot, and Fontaine, all of whom have written 
long and intensely interesting histories of these 
times, were among them. " The great Arnauld," 
foremost of a remarkable family, was a writer of 
text-books for these schools, and so was De Saci, the 
author of that beautiful, " pure, limpid translation 
of the Bible " still in use among French Protestant 
churches. 

A few years later we shall find Blaise Pascal adding 
to the fame of these schools by his novel and suc- 
cessful theories of education, and Racine, the poet, 
entering one of them as a pupil. 

The " Port Royal Grammars " (Greek and Latin), 
the " Greek Primitives/' and the " Elements of Logic 
and of Geometry/' were soon famous, not only 
throughout France, but throughout Europe. 

Learned treatises on many subjects, but chiefly on 
theology, were published by those connected with 
these schools, and "lis sont marques au coin de Port 
Royal"* came to be the fashionable phrase of condem- 
nation, or favor, as the case might be. 



* From the fact that a large number of St. Cyran's followers who 
called themselves "the recluses," but were bound by no vows, 
established themselves at the gates of the convent of Port Royal 
4 



74 Sister and Saint. 

Clearly, as we have said, this state of things was no 
longer to be borne, and we are not surprised to learn 
that after seventeen years in Paris, St. Cyran was one 
day arrested by order of the cardinal. Nineteen 
separate charges Richelieu averred that he found 
against this seditious priest, but the charges were 
never specified, for there was no trial, and, until he 
had been a year in prison, no show even of examina- 
tion. At midnight, May 14, 1638, twenty-two arch- 
ers surrounded St. Cyran's little dwelling and waited 
until morning, hoping to find some pretext for attack- 
ing the house ; but nothing of the kind occurring, at 
six o'clock they knocked and demanded admission. 
St. Cyran was reading St. Augustine with his nephew, 
and they had just come to a passage on humility. 
"That is just what we want/' he said. "Here is 
something to defend ourselves with." The officer 
then coming into his room informed him that he had 
orders to conduct him to a carriage standing at the 
gate. " Sir," said St. Cyran, kindly taking his hand, 
" it is my duty and my pleasure to obey the King." 

They drove at once to the fortress of Vincennes. 
Many a traveler of our day has taken the same road 
through the grand old park and forest to the chateau, 
and climbed the ruined donjon for the magnificent 



des Champs, eighteen miles from Paris, the whole party were often 
called Port Royalists, though after the death of Jansen, from their 
defense of his book, they were frequently called Jansenists. 



The Director of Consciences. 75 

view of the surrounding country and the distant city. 
As they went through the park they met M. 
d'Andilly, that friend whom St. Cyran called his 
" friend par excellence." Lancelot tells us that the 
guard had received orders to turn back the facings of 
their regimentals so as to excite no suspicion. Con- 
sequently d'Andilly, with no thought of trouble, rode 
gaily up to the side of the coach and said : " My 
father, where are you taking all these people ?" " It 
is not I who take them ; they take me," answered St. 
Cyran. " But," he added, " I look upon myself as 
the prisoner of God, not of man." 

The friends were allowed a few moments' conversa- 
tion, when St. Cyran mentioned his regret that he 
could not have had time to bring a book with him. 
D'Andilly had with him a copy of the confessions of 
St. Augustine. "You first taught me the value of 
this book," he said. " Now I am thankful to give it 
back to you." " They then embraced," says the 
touching story, "as those who expect to see each 
other's face no more till the resurrection of the just." 

The same morning Richelieu called to him one of 
his attendant ecclesiastics. " Beaumont," said he, " I 
have done a thing which will raise a great outcry. I 
have had the Abbot of St. Cyran arrested. Learned 
people and pious people, too, will make a great piece 
of work about it. But I am sure I have done a good 
thing. A great many calamities would have been 



;6 



Sister and Saint. 



averted if Luther and Calvin had been shut up as 
soon as they began to dogmatize. " 

And some time later, when Prince Henry of Bour- 
bon ventured to plead for St. Cyran, the cardinal an- 
swered, " You don't know the man for whom you are 
interceding. He is more dangerous than six armies." 



"THE OBSTACLE BECOMES THE 
INSTRUMENT." 



VII. 

"THE OBSTACLE BECOMES THE INSTRUMENT/' 

IN the prison of Vincennes, at the time of St. 
Cyran's arrest, was a certain learned priest named 
Guillebert. He was released soon afterward, but 
not till he had heartily adopted St. Cyran's views and 
begun to seek the truth in his spirit. 

When he was set free he was appointed to the 
parish of Rouville, a suburb of Rouen. And thus 
we come around-— the circle of circumstance and in- 
fluence being complete — to the Pascals once more. 

For as soon as Guillebert began to preach he be- 
came famous in all the region round about. "A great 
religious awakening " — the phrase has an oddly con- 
strained and " not at home " look in the French- 
took place throughout the whole diocese of Rouen. 

Father Guillebert was eloquent as well as learned, 
and this fact, added to the novelty and force of his 
teachings, brought all sorts of people, from far and 
from near, to hear him. Rouville was crowded with 

(79) 



So Sister and Saint. 

guests, and members of the parliament of Rouen were 
accustomed to hire lodgings in the village of a Satur- 
day so as to be ready for the Sabbath services. Sun- 
day traveling was, apparently, not so fashionable then 
as it has since become. 

The new doctrines became the town talk of Rouen, 
and, whatever their opinion concerning them, the 
Pascals must have shared in the general interest, and 
very possibly were sometimes among Guillebert's 
hearers. But, for a year or two after Madame Perier's 
marriage, we lose her graphic family narrative, and 
have no record of the details of their life. 

Sainte-Beuve thinks he can trace in Corneille's 
writings after this time the influence of the truths 
preached at Rouville, though the poet, educated by 
the Jesuits, and closely connected with them in many 
ways, remained through life attached to that party. 
However this may be, no intelligent person living at 
this time in Rouen could have failed to be more or 
less affected by these things, and the Pascals had 
doubtless before this watched with interest the cardi- 
nal's proceedings against St. Cyran. 

It was at last, however, by one of those seeming 
accidents on which so often human destinies are 
hinged, that these solemn questions of truth and 
duty became vital realities to our friends. Up to this 
time they had been upright, conscientious, devout, 
but not, as they expressed it, " eclair6." 



"The Obstacle becomes the Ltstrutnent." 81 

One day, in the winter of 1646, M. Pascal slipped 
and fell on the ice, seriously spraining or dislocating 
his thigh. One account mentions that it was " while 
absent from home on a charitable errand " that the 
accident took place. 

Nov/ there were living in the neighborhood of 
Rouen two wealthy gentlemen, brothers, named 
Deslandes and De la Bouteillerie,* who seem to 
have been surgeons by nature, and who were often 
called upon to remedy such accidents. 

These gentlemen had become, under the preaching 
of Guillebert, humble and active Christians. Each of 
them had erected a small hospital in his own park, 
Deslandes, who had ten children, furnishing his 
building with ten beds and De la Bouteillerie, who 
was childless, providing for twice that number of 
patients. Both spent most of their time in attend- 
ance on the sick, and they were always ready at any 
call to exercise their remarkable skill in setting broken 
or dislocated bones. 

M. Pascal " placed no confidence in any one else," 
his daughter tells us, and sent at once for these good 
brothers, who not only came, but, both of them, re- 
mained in the family three months in order to insure 
complete recovery. 

This was the turning point in Jacqueline Pascal's 



* Brothers in French families are often known by different names 
according to their estates. 



S2 Sister and Saint. 

life. These three months were the quick, warm sum- 
mer sent to ripen the character we have seen already 
in its fragrant flower. True, conscientious, enthusias- 
tic — much that was right and lovely and pure — she 
had been before. She now becomes (and recognizes 
herself as such) a loving child of God. She now 
seeks first His kingdom and His righteousness, and 
all these other things are added unto her. 
Just when the change came we can not know. 



" Who ever saw the earliest rose 
First open her sweet breast ? 
Or, when the summer sun goes down, 
The first soft star in evening's crown 
Light up her gleaming crest ? " 



But at some time during this period the influences 
of all her past life, gracious and merciful, and leading 
always up to this point, culminated in the influences 
of the moment, and she stepped into a larger life — 
she became partaker of the Eternal Life. 

"Toward the end of the year 1646, about ten 
months after the accident," writes Gilberte, "when 
M. Bellay, the bishop of the diocese, was holding an 
ordination at Rouen, my sister, who had not yet been 
confirmed, wished to receive this sacrament. She 
prepared for it according to instructions which she 
found in some little treatises of M. de St. Cyran, and 
we have reason to believe that she then truly received 



" The Obstacle becomes the Instrument." 83 

the Holy Spirit, for, from that time, she was greatly 
changed." 

The residence of these two physicians with the 
Pascals did not affect Jacqueline alone. The whole 
household profited by their presence. Their improv- 
ing conversation and the simple goodness of their 
lives, we are told, first attracted the hearts of all, and 
then there came the natural curiosity to see the books 
which they mentioned as having been helpful and in- 
spiring to them. 

" Thus they became acquainted," says Madame 
Perier, "with the works of M. Jansen, M. de St. 
Cyran, M. Arnauld, and with other writings by which 
they were greatly edified." 

Blaise, with his eager, searching mind, was not long 
in investigating the truths now brought so near to 
him. And, once carefully considered, he honestly 
and heartily adopted them, and gave up his life to the 
service of God. " He comprehended perfectly," says 
his sister, " that the Christian religion obliges us to 
live for God alone, and to have no other object, and 
this truth appeared to him so evident, so necessary, 
and so practical, that he brought to an end all his re- 
searches, and from that time renounced all other 
knowledge to apply himself alone to that l one thing ' 
which Jesus Christ calls needful." 

In " giving up all other knowledge and terminating 
all his researches," Blaise Pascal went through, as we 



84 Sister and Saint. 

shall see, a terrible struggle — it may seem to us a 
needlessly violent one. But one temptation he did 
not have. Skepticism, which has troubled so many 
minds before his day and since, seems never to have 
attacked him. He had no doubts in regard to the 
vital and eternal truths of Christianity. His grasp of 
mind was so large and his intellect so clear that he 
did not confuse, as so many have done, the different 
realms of truth. He recognized that spiritual things 
can not be discerned as material things are discerned, 
or judged as material things are judged. His wise 
father had " taught him from infancy that that 
which is the object of faith can not be the object 
of reason, much less can it be submitted to reason." 
"This maxim, often reiterated by a father for whom 
he had great respect, and in whom he saw great 
knowledge, accompanied with a very clear and 
powerful reason, made so great an impression on his 
mind that, whatever discourse he may have heard 
which tended to free-thinking, he was in no way 
moved by it ; and even when he was very young, he 
regarded skeptics as men who were acting on a false 
principle, viz, that the human reason is above every- 
thing else, and as men who did not understand the 
nature of faith. " 

" Thus," continues Madame Perier, " this mind, so 
large, so grasping, and so full of curiosity, which 
searched with so much care for the cause and the 



"The Obstacle becomes the Instrument" 85 

reason of everything, was, at the same time, in mat- 
ters of religion, trustful as a little child. 

■" This simplicity governed his whole life, so that, in 
after-years, when his whole heart was engrossed with 
spiritual realities, he never busied himself with curi- 
ous questions of theology, but applied the full 
strength of his mind to understand and to practice 
Christian holiness, dedicating to this all his talents, 
and meditating day and night on the law of his God." 

What a Christian character was that ! Happy Jac- 
queline, who could walk hand in hand with such a 
brother in the way which, though they found it nar- 
row, they also found a way of exceeding pleasant- 
ness ! Happy father, who now, " not ashamed to 
become the child of his children/' followed after them 
in this way of life ! 

In the course of the winter M. and Madame Perier 
visited Rouen and became the subjects of a like 
change. And thus the whole family rejoiced together 
in the love of God, and entered with enthusiastic de- 
votion on the highest service possible to human souls. 

During the years immediately preceding the con- 
version of the Pascals, great changes had taken place 
in France. 

In December, 1642, Cardinal Richelieu died, and a 
few months afterward, the king, Louis XIII., leav- 
ing the kingdom in the hands of Anne of Austria as 
Regent, with Cardinal Mazarin for Prime Minister. 



86 Sister and Saint. 

The young king, Louis XIV., was but five years of 
age at the time of his father's death. 

When Richelieu died, many a prison-door was 
opened, and among those liberated was St. Cyran. 
His years in prison had been fruitful ones. As is 
so often the case in the lives of good men, "the 
obstacle became the instrument/' and the letters 
written from his cell and circulated with enthusiastic 
industry by his friends and disciples, probably did 
more good than he, in his own person, could have 
effected. Especially was religious interest quickened 
among the nobility by Richelieu's violent measure. 

The Duchess d'Aiguillon interceded with her uncle 
for St. Cyran, but without the success which had at- 
tended her efforts for M. Pascal during Jacqueline's 
childhood. She obtained permission, however, to 
visit the prisoner and to take d'Andilly with her, and 
through this latter faithful friend St. Cyran was kept 
supplied with pencils and paper. The duchess also 
visited Port Royal, and the convent became, we are 
told, " a fashionable resort of the court," much to the 
discomfort of the good abbesses Angelique and 
Agnes. They were willing, however, to do what they 
could for human souls, whatever their station in this 
life. They showed infinite patience, tenderness, and 
charity toward the Princess de Guemene, for exam- 
ple, who was one of their most constant visitors, but 
a woman of light and frivolous character. Her fre- 



"The Obstacle becomes the Instrument! 1 87 

quent " retreats " to the convent, and her long con- 
versations with them on spiritual matters gave them 
great hope of her. But St. Cyran, to whom all these 
things were faithfully reported, knew the world better 
than they did. " The grace of God in that woman's 
soul," he wrote, "is like a spark kindled on an icy 
pavement with the winds blowing on it from every 
quarter." And so it proved. 

But in some seemingly unpromising spots the well- 
tended spark increased to a flame both warm and 
bright. Among the " illustrious women of the seven- 
teenth century " (of whom Cousin has given us some 
delightful studies, and first of whom, by the way, he 
places our own Jacqueline Pascal), we find many 
whose hearts have caught, in greater or less degree, 
the gracious warmth and light. 

A beautiful example of thorough and sincere con- 
version was Madame de St. Ange, a member of the 
household of Anne of Austria. This lady, we are 
told, "was soon promoted by St. Cyran from the 
rank of disciple to that of friend," and she became 
one of the most faithful of his agents in the distribu- 
tion of charity. 

Pleasant stories are told of St. Cyran's thoughtful 
kindness for others while in prison. At one time he 
bestows a wedding dowry on a poor maiden. Again, 
he sends for a black coat for a poor mad prisoner who 
can not endure the sight of the gray clothes he wears. 



SS Sister and Saint. 

Among the prisoners were a Baron and Baroness de 
Beausoleil, who were very destitute and poorly clad. 
St. Cyran sent directions to have clothing bought for 
them, and added : " Pray let the cloth be good and 
fine, such as befits their rank. I do not know what is 
proper, but I think I have heard somewhere that 
gentlemen and ladies of their condition can not ap- 
pear without gold lace for the men and black lace for 
the women. If so, pray get the best, and, in short, 
let all be done modestly, but yet handsomely, that, in 
looking at each other, they may for a few minutes 
forget that they are captives/' 

Against this waste his almoner remonstrated. 
(" Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred 
pence and given to the poor?") But St. Cyran an- 
swered : " I do not believe that the Lord, who com- 
mands me to give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, 
will account me a bad stew r ard for giving modestly to 
each according to that rank in which He placed them." 
Let us ponder this lesson — all of us active philan- 
thropists who are so much inclined to give to the 
needy not what they wish, but what we think they 
ought to wish — who willingly " bestow our goods to 
feed the poor, and have not charity." 

As we have seen in the case of Guillebert, St. Cy- 
ran's influence on his fellow-prisoners often produced 
wide-spread results. All were, at least, impressed by 
his character, if not convinced by his teachings. 



" The Obstacle becomes the Instrument]' 89 

John de Wert, a Spanish nobleman and prisoner of 
war, who was also at Vincennes, was once released 
for a few days on parole, and invited to a magnifi- 
cent ballet given by Richelieu for the express purpose 
of impressing the foreign ministers and prisoners with 
French wealth and magnificence. The cardinal 
seated his noble guest next to him, and, somewhat 
chagrined by his unbroken silence through the entire 
spectacle, at last asked what had most impressed him 
of all the remarkable things he had seen in France. 
" My lord," answered John de Wert at once, " noth- 
ing has so much astonished me in the dominion of his 
Most Christian Majesty, as to see ecclesiastics amusing 
themselves at theaters while saints languish in prison." 

Great and general was the joy when, shortly after 
Richelieu's death, St. Cyran obtained his release. 

D'Andilly went to bring him away in his carriage, 
and they drove once more through the forest of Vin- 
cennes. " No captive," says Mrs. Schimmelpen- 
ninck, "had ever received such demonstrations of 
esteem. His guards and fellow-prisoners threw them- 
selves at his feet, to implore his parting benediction, 
and they mingled tears of joy at his release, with 
those of sorrow for his departure. His guards espec- 
ially mourned his loss, and all the garrison, wishing 
to show their respect, spontaneously arranged them- 
selves in two rows to let him pass out, to the sound 
of fifes and drums and discharges of musketry/' 



90 Sister and Saint. 

After a brief stop in Paris, they drove to Port 
Royal des Champs. But the good news was swallow- 
winged, and had reached the convent before them. 
It was the hour of silence when the announcement 
came — an hour strictly and solemnly observed by 
ever}* member of the household. But Angelique 
could not keep her Joy to herself. She hastened to 
the conference room, where the nuns were assembled, 
and her radiant face partly told the story* Then she 
snatched off the girdle which bound her robe, and 
held it out. The sisters guessed the parable, and 
tears of joy sprang to many eyes, and heads were 
bowed in thankfulness, though not a word was 
spoken. When d'Andilly and St. Cyran arrived, 
they went at once to the chapel, and the nuns, hastily 
assembled, sang a joyful Te Deiim while their be- 
loved father knelt at the altar to give thanks. 

But the years of imprisonment and deprivation 
had produced their natural effect, and St. Cyran's 
health was permanently broken. He lived but a few 
months after his release. Through his illness he 
showed a sweetness of spirit worthy of his life. He 
was obliged to submit to a surgical operation, and, it 
is said, suffered much from the surgeon's unskillful- 
ness. But he refused to call in another for three 
reasons. First, his life was in the hands of God and 
not of man, therefore it was no matter whether the 
surgeon was skillful or not. Second, the poor man 



"The Obstacle becomes the Instrument!' 91 

was doing his best, and it would be unjust to punish 
him for what was not his fault. In the third place, 
the physician suggested was a personal friend of his 
own, whom it would be a great pleasure to see, and 
he wished to deny himself that gratification. 

These three reasons are a good epitome of the 
man's character: Implicit faith in God; careful jus- 
tice to his neighbor ; no tenderness to himself. 



A HAPPY YEAR. 



VIII. 

A HAPPY YEAR. 

THE "spiritual twinship " between Jacqueline 
Pascal and her brother had never been so 
strong as now. 
They read the same books, they thought the same 
thoughts, they prayed the same prayers. They often 
wrote their letters to their sister in concert, using the 
" we " as naturally and freely as the habitual singular 
pronoun, and subscribing either both their names, or 
one or other of them, as it happened, apparently, and 
without any reference to the actual writer. 

Some ideas and phrases found in the letters of this 
time are repeated in Pascal 5 s celebrated "Thoughts-,", 
published twenty years later, while, by their side, like 
daisies growing in some temple porch, are the fresh, 
simple expressions of a young girl's feelings. 

They were very free with one another and with 
their sister in speaking of their religious experiences. 

(95) 



96 Sister and Saint. 

Afterward they became much less so, owing to the 
extreme reserve recommended by the Jansenist 
writers as a safeguard against spiritual pride. " It 
seems to us," says one letter, "that, far from being 
forbidden, we are actually bound to make known to 
each other our joy over God's goodness to us as a 
family. We have a right now to consider our rela- 
tionship as perfected ; having before been united by 
the tie of flesh, we are now united in soul." 

Their ardor in these early days is beautiful and in- 
spiring to see. " There is no point," closes the same 
letter, " where it is not perilous for us to halt. We 
can only escape a fall by continually climbing higher." 

The increasing feebleness of young Pascal's health 
must have deepened the tenderness of the intimacy 
between brother and sister. After he was eighteen 
years of age, he used to say, he never passed a day 
without pain. At times his maladies took on most 
distressing and alarming forms. 

" Besides other annoyances," says Madame Perier, 
" he was unable to swallow any liquid unless it was 
lukewarm, and then only w r hen it was trickled drop 
by drop down his throat." This was owing to a 
spasmodic action or partial paralysis of the throat. 

" In order to relieve his intolerable headaches, his 
raging internal fever, and other ailments to which he 
was subject, his physicians ordered him to take cer- 
tain medicines every alternate day for three months. 



A Happy Year. 97 



These all had to be swallowed in this tedious, luke- 
warm way. It was a veritable penance and pitiful to 
see, but he never once complained. " 

Sometimes his limbs were paralyzed and he could 
not move without crutches. His feet were cold and 
heavy as marble, and in order to produce any circu- 
lation in them, he was obliged to wear stockings 
dipped in brandy. 

Jacqueline during these days was housekeeper, 
nurse, companion, friend — all that is meant by that 
large word, sister. 

Altogether, this year .of her father's convalescence, 
her brother's increasing need of her, of cheerful letters 
back and forth between home and Clermont, and a 
long visit from Gilberte and her husband at one time, 
of household cares and activities — so many to the 
mistress of a French family of the Pascals' station — 
of growing interest in new lines of thought, and of 
making acquaintance with new books to read — this 
last year in quaint, bright, historic, inspiring Rouen — 
seems to us the happiest year of Jacqueline Pascal's 
life. Perplexing questions had not yet arisen. Life 
was simple. Duty was plain. Sacrifice, if she was 
conscious of any, brought with it, day by day, its own 
reward. Her father, who, as Gilberte more than once 
tells us, loved Jacqueline with " an extraordinary ten- 
derness," was happy in the home she made for him. 
Her brother was relieved by her ministries, soothed 
5 



9$ Sister and Saint. 



by her sympathy, practically helped by her ready and 
interested assistance in his scientific pursuits. 

Blaise was still at work on that vexatious little 
calculating machine. For though in theory it had 
long been perfect, its workmanship was so delicate 
and its principle so far above the comprehension of 
all the artificers he could find, that he had endless 
trouble in getting it into actual operation. He had 
not lost his childhood's love for geometry, and there 
are among his papers one or two undated fragments 
on mathematical subjects which were very likely writ- 
ten about this time. 

But the principal subject of his investigations just 
now was the mechanical properties of the atmosphere, 
and he was considering with his usual keen and search- 
ing interest a series of experiments lately made in 
Italy on this subject. 

We can not do more in this little book than stand 
on the border of that great region of physics in which 
Blaise Pascal delighted to roam. But, perhaps, if we 
linger there a moment we may, in some degree, share 
Jacqueline's sympathy with him. 

It was the old theory of the " vacuum " which exer- 
cised his mind — a theory so old and so respectable 
that nobody for years had thought of calling it in 
question any more than we do that of gravitation. 
But it was an age of speculation and original investi- 
gation in science as well as in theology. And this, 



A Happy Year. 99 

by the way, the historians of science inform us, is 
owing to Descartes, as great a revolutionist in his do- 
main as Luther or Calvin had been in theirs. 

When, therefore, it was found by the fountain- 
makers of Cosmo di Medici in Florence that water 
could be forced up in a tube only thirty-two feet, they 
began to inquire the reason of its refusal to go further, 
and consulted the aged philosopher, Galileo, on the 
subject. Antiquity had said : Water follows the 
pis.on up the tube of a pump because "nature abhors 
a vacuum. " But why, asked the workmen, will it fol- 
low the piston only thirty-two feet ? 

For the honor of philosophy some answer must be 
given, and so Galileo answered that thirty-two feet 
was the limit of nature's abhorrence of a vacuum ! 
Beyond that she did not abhor one. 

Laughable as such an explanation may seem to us, 
it was received in all seriousness by those interested 
in the question then, and was, indeed, no more absurd 
than many an article of common faith in those days. 
But Galileo himself, it appears, felt somewhat uneasy 
as to the reasonableness of this dictum of his, and 
began to make experiments to prove it either true or 
false. He was an old man, however, and died before 
he had settled the point, leaving an earnest injunction 
to his pupil and successor, Torricelli, to carry on his 
investigations. 

Torricelli did so, and published in 1645 an account 



ioo Sister and Saint. 

of his experiments, with the hint (for it was scarcely 
more than that) that it was the weight of the atmos- 
phere, and not the horror of a vacuum, which regulated 
the height of a column of fluid in a tube. But he, in 
his turn, died very soon after the publication of his 
paper, and before his opinion was proved to be cor- 
rect — " his suspicion really a secret of nature's " — kept 
so well till now ! 

Our young philosopher at Rouen heard of these 
things through Father Mersenne, a priest of scien- 
tific tastes, and an intimate friend of the great Des- 
cartes. And it was not long before Pascal's exper- 
iments " touchant le Vide" were as well known in 
the world of science as Torricelli's. 

He conducted them, as Torricelli had done, with 
mercury, the heaviest known fluid, instead of water, 
and the conclusion in his mind, also, was that the old 
doctrine of nature's abhorrence of a vacuum had no 
foundation to rest upon, and that all the phenomena 
formerly explained by that were better explained by 
the pressure of the atmosphere. 

Early in this year, 1647, Blaise published a little 
book giving an account of his experiments. The 
Abbe Bossut assures us that not till after its publica- 
tion did Pascal know that Torricelli's conclusions had 
been the same as his own, though he had been in- 
formed in detail of the latter's experiments. How- 
ever that may be, he simply makes in his book a plain 



A Happy Year. 101 



statement of his own observations and the natural 
inferences from them, and distinctly says that he 
makes no mention of what has been done in Italy, 
because, though he has repeated those experiments 
" in every sort of fashion," this is only an account of 
his own proceedings. 

The Jesuits did not like this little book. And there 
were others who did not like it. u All the false sci- 
ence of the time," says Bossut, " arrayed itself against 
Pascal." He was accused of borrowing his ideas from 
the Italians, and (what was worse) of unsettling long- 
established beliefs. He was soon in the midst of a 
lively shower of controversial pamphlets. But he 
took wonderfully little interest in them. He was 
bent on discovering the truth, and proceeded calmly 
to devise some simple and final experiments which 
should forever settle the disputed point. 

M. Pascal, the elder, however, thought it worth 
while to answer his son's most conspicuous antago- 
nist, a certain Father Noel, Rector of the Jesuit Col- 
lege in Paris. He did so in a very strong and sarcas- 
t c letter — "une lettre de bonne encre," Sainte-Beuve 
calls it. Father Noel, in addition to several long 
letters of objections, had gone out of his way to 
write a poor burlesque, entitled " Le Plein du Vide." 

M. Pascal makes unmerciful sport of the reverend 
gentleman's " figures of rhetoric which are not within 
the rules of grammar," but, above all, gives him to 



102 Sister and Saint. 

understand that, in dealing with his son, he is dealing 
with no common foe. " He is able to defend himself," 
closes the father's letter, " in terms capable of causing 
you an eternal repentance." This is strong language. 
But when Blaise himself began calmly to answer 
Father Noel's objections, taking them up one by one, 
and completely disposing of them, that gentleman, as 
we shall see, apparently thought there was a grain of 
truth mixed with paternal pride. 

All these excitements, labors, and experiments, we 
are to remember, were carried on in the intervals of 
(or in the midst of) such distressing attacks of illness 
as Gilberte has described to us ; in the midst, also, 
of constantly increasing attention to Church observ- 
ances and religious duties, and of much reading of de- 
votional books. 

Certainly every moment must have been fully oc- 
cupied. 

We can not help suspecting, with Sainte-Beuve, 
that Pascal's ill-health at this time — the tormenting 
headaches from which he suffered, and the terribly 
shattered condition of his nervous system — was partly 
owing to the mental struggle which .began soon after 
his conversion. This was a conflict between his con- 
science and his thirst for knowledge — the two most 
powerful forces of his nature — and it would have 
been strange indeed if it had not made some impres- 
sion on the sensitive physical frame. 



A Happy Year. 103 

One of the books which the good brother physi- 
cians had lent the Pascals during that winter of 1646, 
was a little discourse of Jansen's on the " Reforma- 
tion of the Interior Man," and in it the ardent 
student read these cruel words : 

" There is another desire worse than that of the 
senses ; more misleading because it appears more 
honest. This is that always restless curiosity .... 
which has been palliated by the name of science. This 
makes the intellect its seat of empire, .... and the 
world is all the more corrupted by this malady of the 
soul because it is concealed under the veil of health, 
that is to say, of science From this evil princi- 
ple comes research into the secrets of nature which 
do not concern us, which it is useless to know, and 
which men wish to know only for the sake of know- 
ing." 

There are several pages more in the same strain, 
and we wonder if the good bishop did not mentally 
condemn himself, as he wrote them, for his own de- 
light in digging out Hebrew and Latin roots ! 

But whatever the protests from Pascal's conscience, 
he, as yet, kept up his investigations with ardor and, 
as we have seen, with success. 

In September of this year (1647) the brother and 
sister went to Paris, partly, it would seem, to seek 
medical advice for Blaise, and partly in search of 
recreation for him. 



104 Sister and Saint. 

The young scientist's reputation brought him polite 
attention from many distinguished men, and Jacque- 
line mentions some of them in the following letter to 
Gilberte : 

"My very dear Sister: — I have deferred writ- 
ing to you because I wished to send a full account of 
my brother's interview with M. Descartes, and had 
not leisure yesterday to tell you that M. Habert 
called here on Sunday evening, accompanied by M. 
de Montigny, a gentleman of Brittany, and as my 
brother w r as at church, the latter informed me that 
his fellow-townsman and intimate friend, M. Des- 
cartes, had expressed a great desire to see my brother 
for the sake of the great esteem in which he and my 
father were everywhere held, and had requested him 
to come and see if it would be inconvenient to my 
brother (whom he knew to be an invalid) to receive a 
visit from M. Descartes the next morning at nine 
o'clock. 

" When M. de Montigny made this proposal I was 
puzzled what to say, knowing the difficulty which 
Blaise finds in exerting himself or talking in the 
morning, and yet not thinking it right to decline the 
call. Finally it was agreed that M. Descartes should 
delay coming till half-past ten, and accordingly he 
came at that hour, in company with M. Habert, M. 
de Montigny, a young ecclesiastic whom I do not 
know, M. de Montigny's son, and two or three other 



A Happy Year. 105 

youths. M. de Roberval, to whom my brother had 
sent word, was also there. 

" After the usual civilities, the calculating machine 
was mentioned, and being displayed by M. de Rober- 
val, was very much admired. They then began to 
discuss the theory of the vacuum, and M. Descartes, 
on being told of an experiment and asked what force 
he thought it was which expelled water from a syringe, 
said with perfect seriousness that it was subtle matter; 
to which my brother made what answer he could ; 
and M. de Roberval, thinking that it hurt him to talk, 
took up the reply to Descartes with some warmth, 
though with perfect civility. But the latter told him, 
somewhat sharply, that he was willing to talk with 
my brother as long as they liked, because he spoke 
rationally, but not with him (M. de Roberval), for he 
was prejudiced. 

" Then, perceiving by his watch that it was noon, 
and having an invitation to dine in the Faubourg St. 
Germain, he took leave ; and so did M. de Roberval, 
who rode back with M. Descartes in a carriage, 
where, being quite alone, they sang merry songs and 
were rather wild ; that is, according to M. de Rober- 
val's account, who returned after dinner and found 
M. d'Alibrai here. I had almost forgotten to say 
that M. Descartes, sorry that he could only stay so 
short a time, promised my brother to come back at 
eight o'clock the next morning 



106 Sister a? id Saint. 

" M. Descartes made this second call, partly to ad- 
vise my brother in regard to his illness, concerning 
which, however, he said but little, merely recom- 
mending him to remain in bed every day as long as he 
could do so without weariness, and to take strong 
broths. They conversed on many other subjects, for 
he stayed till eleven ; but I can not tell you what 
they were, for I was not present and could not in- 
quire, having been very busy the rest of the day in 
superintending his first bath. He thought the bath 
made his head ache, but the water being too warm 
perhaps caused this. I think having his feet bled 
Sunday night did him good, for he was able to speak 
Monday quite forcibly, in the morning to M. Des- 
cartes, and in the afternoon to M. de Roberval, with 
whom he held a long argument on many points in 
theology and physics without any further inconveni- 
ence than a profuse night-sweat and wakefulness. I 
had feared a severe headache after so much exer- 
tion." .... 

Another pleasant letter from Paris begins thus : 
"We can not tell whether this letter is destined, 
like the other, to have no formal close, but we do 
know that when writing to you we never wish to leave 
off. We are now reading M. de St. Cyran's letter, 
De la Vocation, which was printed a short time since, 
and has given great offense. You shall have it as 
soon as we have finished, and we shall be glad to 



A Happy Year. 107 

know your opinion of it and my father's also. Its 
tone is very high." .... 

Descartes was not their only distinguished visitor. 
The Reverend Father Noel one day sent one of his 
Jesuit confreres to inquire kindly after his young ad- 
versary's health. He very much feared that the an- 
swer to his first objection (which had lately been 
published and widely read) might have been injurious 
to the writer. He begged him not to risk his precious 
health again ; in short, not to answer him any more ! 
It would be better to wait till they could argue face 
to face. 

" I avow," writes Pascal to a friend, "I avow to you 
that if this proposition had been made to me by any- 
body but these good Fathers I should have suspected 
it ! But I doubted their sincerity so little that I gave 
them my promise without reserve." 

And after this the Jesuits accused him of having 
nothing more to say for himself against Pere Noel ! 

The experiments went on, however, and told their 
own story. From the top of the Tour St. Jacques 
young Pascal conducted them in person, and tri- 
umphantly proved the theory of atmospheric pres- 
sure.* You may see his statue to-day in the vaulted 



* Pascal's reasoning was this : If atmospheric pressure is the 
force supporting the column of mercury, then that column will 
diminish as you leave behind it successive layers of that weight. 
The column gradually fell in ascending the tower, and as gradually 
rose in descending, and thus proved his hypothesis correct. This 



io8 Sister and Saint. 

chamber at the foot of the beautiful tower, and many 
a reader of this page, doubtless, has seen it. This 
achievement alone would have made Pascal famous. 
Yet it is not for this that the world to-day chiefly 
does him honor. 

To make assurance doubly sure, Blaise sent to his 
brother-in-law, M. Perier, to repeat these experiments 
at Clermont upon the Puy de D6me, that being three 
thousand feet high, whereas the Tour St. Jacques 
was only a hundred and fifty. Here, also, they were 
brilliantly successful. 

Bigotry and prejudice had nothing more to say, 
and the old doctrine of nature's abhorrence of a 
vacuum was dropped from the creed of science. 

Among the choicest of their pleasures in Paris, 
Blaise and Jacqueline Pascal regarded the preaching 
of M. Singlin, whom they often heard at the church 
of Port Royal de Paris. Singlin was St. Cyran's suc- 
cessor as chaplain and confessor of the convent. He 
was a man of great goodness and wisdom, and one of 
the most distinguished preachers of the reformed or 
reforming party in the Church. 

Through their own pastor, Guillebert, they ob- 
tained an introduction to M. Singlin and, in due time, 



is .simply the principle of the barometer, now so familiar. Full ac- 
counts of these experiments and their results are given in many- 
lives of Pascal, and a very clear and interesting one in an article by 
Sir David Brewster in the North British Reviezv for August, 1844. 



A Happy Year. 109 

to the Abbess Angelique and the other Port Royal 
celebrities. 

And so this happy year draws to its close. We 
like to linger over it. It is a beautiful picture, and it 
ought to have lasted longer. We can not help regret- 
ting that what seem to us mistaken notions of duty 
should have so soon destroyed it. We can not help 
wishing that the idea of becoming a nun, which now 
presented itself to Jacqueline, had never entered her 
head. We wish she had thought it right — had seen 
it right — to let her light shine at home, and, how- 
ever she might have treated the offers of marriage 
now coming frequently, we are told, had, at least, de- 
voted her life to making a " sunshine in a shady 
place " for the father and brother who had been, and 
still were, so much to her. 

What such a girl might have been, at home, to her 
own immediate family, to her nephews and nieces, to 
her servants and her poor, to the noble society which 
opened its doors so freely to her — how broadcast she 
might have sown her precious seed — how widely dif- 
fused the leaven of her sweet, pure life — it is impos- 
sible to estimate. And no student of her character 
can fail to feel that at this point Jacqueline Pascal 
made the mistake of her life. She sought too high 
the way of duty and missed the narrow, sweetly, 
shaded path at her feet. 

Yet, even in our regret we are met by another 



iio Sister and Saint. 

thought : — that, whatever the mistakes of a consci- 
entious soul, through those very mistakes, sometimes 
by direct means of them, that soul is led into a higher 
place. 

Jacqueline Pascal had entered on a course of end- 
less progress. She was going on. There was no 
such thing for her as turning back. 

As the brother and sister have shown us in that 
happy letter of theirs quoted at the beginning of 
this chapter, they had made up their minds "to 
escape falls by continually climbing higher." They 
chose a way to climb which certainly does not seem 
to us the best way. But it brought them up ! Was 
the Lord going to let them fall because, out of love 
for Him, they chose the steepest path? 

They were entering into life. And if they must 
pluck out the right eye or cut off the right hand and 
enter into life maimed — so be it ! Nevertheless, 
they would enter in ! It would have been nobler and 
better to our thinking if they could have entered in 
whole — a natural, beautiful, well-rounded man and 
woman, as God created them to be. 

A rose is at its best when, rich in all its crimson 
beauty, it sends up its breath to heaven. But 
crushed and beaten out of all its comeliness, a rose 
still yields a rare perfume. 



CLIMBING. 



IX. 



CLIMBING, 



SOME notion of the religious training of the 
Pascal family under Pastor Guillebert is 
given us in this passage from the " Memoirs 
of Margaret Perier," Gilberte's daughter : 

" My father and mother, while at Rouen, were under 
the ministry of M. Guillebert, Doctor of the Sorbonne, 
a very holy and discreet man. He counseled my 
mother, who was then twenty-six years old, to lay 
aside all her ornaments and wear no trimmings on 
her dresses, which she cheerfully did. When she was 
obliged to return to Clermont, M. Guillebert told her 
that he had an important piece of advice to give her, 
and it was this : That ladies whose piety prevented 
them from wearing ornaments often took pleasure in 
decorating their children, and that she must be care- 
ful to avoid doing so, gay dress being far more inju- 
rious to children, who are naturally fond of it, than to 
grown persons, who, knowing its frivolity, care nothing 

("3) 



1 14 Sister and Saint. 

for it. Accordingly, on her return to Clermont, where 
she had left my sister, then a little over four years 
old, and myself, then not quite three, she found that 
my grandmother, who had charge of us in her absence, 
had dressed us both in frocks embroidered with silver 
and fully trimmed with ribbons and laces, as was then 
the fashion. My mother took everything off and 
clad us in gray camlet without lace or ribbon. She 
forbade our nurse to let us play with two little girls 
of our own age in the neighborhood, whom we had 
been in the habit of seeing ever} 7 day, lest we should 
acquire a love for the gay garments they usually wore. 
She was so particular on this point that, in 165 1, when 
my grandfather Pascal died, and she was obliged to 
be present in Paris at the settlement of the estate, 
she chose to incur the expense of taking us with her 
for* fear that my grandmother would make us dress 
in finer clothes, if we were left under her care. She 
always taught us to wear the most simple and modest 
clothing, and I can say with truth, that since I was 
between two and three years old I have never worn 
either gold, silver, colored ribbons, curls, or laces." 

" Which she cheerfully did ?" That is the key-note. 
Madame Perter, and, as we know quite well, Jacque- 
line and the whole family, are far too much in earnest 
to mind such trifles as these. 

It is expected of them that they shall lay aside 
their ornaments, and they do so, as naturally and eas- 



Climbing. 115 

ily as some simple-hearted princess puts on her jewels, 
because that is expected of her. In either case the 
ornaments or the want of them are nothing. 

Neither Gilberte nor Jacqueline ever allude to 
anything they have given up or write in a way that 
suggests sacrifice. It was not sacrifice to them. As 
Mrs. Charles has so well said in regard to another 
noble woman : " Not that she painfully denied herself 
luxuries. In the coinage of the kingdom where she 
dwelt they were simply valueless." 

But when the question of giving up came to Blaise, 
then, indeed, it became a vital and a painful thing. 

Those words of Jansen's which we have quoted are 
but a sample of what was to be found in many other 
of the best books of the day, and the young disciple 
heard on all sides the call to sacrifice mind and heart 
and soul and strength for Christ's sake and the Gos- 
pel's. The Roman Catholic Church has always re- 
garded human nature not as a servant to be trained 
for the Master's use, but as a foe, to be subdued and 
crushed. There are other Christians who act upon 
the same theory. It is a terribly dangerous theory, 
for it results in the majority of men and women 
living in opposition to conscience, and nothing can be 
so blighting as that to all true growth of soul. 

The struggle in Pascal's mind is evident in many 
ways. About this time he composed fifteen prayers 
for use in sickness. " Lord," he cries out in one of 



n6 Sister and Saint. 

them, " I know myself to be certain of but this one 
thing. It is good to follow Thee. It is evil to offend 
Thee. Beyond this I am ignorant of what is best or 
worst for me." It is a glimpse into his secret heart — 
perplexed and troubled, yet making sure of the one 
main truth in which alone is safety. 

The account of the atmospherical experiments was 
followed quickly by two treatises on hydrostatics. 
Then the physicians took sides with conscience and 
forbade all scientific studies — forbade, indeed, all men- 
tal exertion — and there followed an effort at self- 
annihilation more painful than all the struggles. 
Surely, at this time, if ever, Blaise Pascal needed his 
twin sister ! 

The brother and sister, apparently, never returned 
to Rouen, for in May, 1648, M. Pascal was appointed 
Councillor of State, and returned to make his home 
in Paris. 

During the winter they became better acquainted 
with their new friends, and regularly attended church 
at the convent chapel of Port Royal. 

Port Royal was no common convent, as all of us 
know who have read the lives of that noble band of 
v/omen who worked and worshiped within its walls. 
" My sister came to the conclusion," says Madame 
Perier, " that here, to use her own expression, one 
might reasonably be a nun. 

" She perceived from M. Singling preaching that 



Climbing. 1 1 7 

his ideas of a Christian's life were in accordance with 
those she had formed since God first touched her 
heart. 

" She imparted her thoughts to my brother, who, 
far from dissuading her, encouraged her, for he was 
imbued with similar views. His approbation so 
strengthened her that thenceforth she never wavered 
in the design of devoting herself to God." 

" My brother," Gilberte says again, "who loved her 
with especial tenderness, was delighted with her proj- 
ect, and thought of nothing but how he should aid 

her to accomplish it My sister visited Port 

Royal as often as the great distance of her dwelling 
would permit, and the Abbesses told her to place 
herself under the charge of M. Singlin, in order that 
he might judge if she were truly called to a cloistered 
life. She did not fail to obey, and from the very first 
time that M. Singlin saw her, he told my brother that 
he had never known so strongly-marked a vocation. 
This testimony was a great comfort to my brother, 
and it made him doubly anxious for the success of a 
design which he had every reason to believe was of 
God. All this occurred in the early part of the year 
1648, when my brother and sister were at Paris and 
my father at Rouen." 

The brother's unselfish love comes out nobly here, 
and his genuine sympathy with the highest and best 
in his sister. True unity of spirit is that when each 



1 1 8 Sister and Saint. 

can rejoice in the sacrifice the other makes ! True 
love is that which can allow the beloved one to re- 
nounce ! 

Because "he loved her with an especial tender- 
ness/* therefore " he was delighted with her project " 
of dying to the world, to her home, to her youth, to 
her fame, to himself forever. He was, in fact, one 
with her in the matter ; he saw it through her eyes 
and felt it through her heart. 

And Jacqueline herself ? How was it with her ? 
Was there no conflict in her heart ? Was there no 
pain to her in this wrench from a life which had been 
so pleasant and a home which had been so dear ? It 
can scarcely have been otherwise with such a girl as 
she ; yet we have no hint of any such thing. From 
the first she seems to have thrown into this project 
the same enthusiasm which she threw into her childish 
play-acting and versifying. 

It seems to have been Pleasure that beckoned, not 
Duty that called. Her letters are full of it. She can 
speak of little else, and she prays for grace to restrain 
her ardor, not for grace to endure the trial. The 
whole current of her desires, in fact, has changed its 
course. She is filled, as Cousin says, with " an in- 
vincible passion for solitude and the monastic life." 

We have said there was no hint of a regret. There 
is, among Jacqueline Pascal's collected verses, a little 
poem, without date, which Reuchlin (her German 



Climbing. 119 

biographer) thinks must have been written about 
this time. He calls it the " Swan-song of the poetess 
ere she laid her gift on the altar of her God." 
Here are the verses : 

" O, ye dark forests, in whose sombre shades 
Night finds a noonday lair, 
Silence a sacred refuge ! to your glades 

A stranger, worn with care 
And weary of life's jostle, would repair. 
He asks no medicine for his fond heart's pain ; 
He breaks your stillness with no piercing cry; 
He comes not to complain, 
He only comes to die ! 

" To die among the busy haunts of men 
Were to betray his woe ; 
But these thick woods and this sequestered glen 

No trace of suffering show. 
Here would he die that none his wound may know , 
Ye need not dread his weeping — tears are vain — 
Here let him perish and unheeded lie ; 
He comes not to complain, 
He only comes to die ! " 

It is one of the prettiest poems she ever wrote, 
but it must always be a matter of mere conjecture 
whether Reuchlin's theory is correct, If this is an 
expression of her own feelings, certainly not another 
line of all she ever wrote, not a word of her brother's 
letters, or her sisters " Memoirs," or Margaret 
Perier's " Recollections," gives us any reason to think 
of her as, at any time, "worn with care," or "weary 
of life's jostle/* Moreover, after the " Stanzas thank- 



120 Sister a? id Saint 



ing God for recovery from the Small-pox/' written 
in her childhood, there are none of her verses which 
have a personal bearing. They are all Sonnets, Songs, 
Serenades, To a Lady, To the Queen, to St. Cecilia, 
For an Album, etc., etc., according to the fashion of 
the day. 

Many a girl of poetic temperament* might easily 
find herself in the mood to write such a song as this, 
who yet would not wish to have it regarded as an 
expression of personal feeling. And more than all, 
Cousin, who is probably Jacqueline Pascal's most 
thorough student and critic, makes no allusion to 
such a theory, and places the poem among those of 
earlier date. 

In a nature like hers, it seems to us the internal 
strife would not have been heralded in verse ; and if 
it had been, something like this would more likely 
have been her song : 

" Sweet is the smile of home : the mutual look 

When hearts are of each other sure ; 
Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook, 

The haunt of all affections pure ; 
Yet in the world even these abide, and we 

Above the world our calling boast ; 
Once gain the mountain-top and thou art free, 

Till then, who rest, presume ; who turn to look are lost." * 

Whatever the conflict that did go on in Jacqueline 



* " Keble's Christian Year." First Sunday in Lent. 



Climbing. 121 

Pascal's heart, it was almost immediately forgotten — 
swallowed up — in victory. 

Vinet, in a fine essay on her character, compares 
her Christian course to the military life of the great 
Prince of Conde, who leaped at once to fame by in- 
sisting on his own plans, against the advice of older 
generals, and carrying them out successfully in his 
first battle, Rocroy. " It is not the fate," says Vinet, 
" of every gallant spirit to begin its career with a 
Rocroy that shall at once put its greatness beyond 
the pale of doubt forever. What was Jacqueline 
Pascal's Rocroy? An internal victory witnessed by 
God alone, and owing more than half its grandeur to 
the clouds in which it was enshrouded. To annihi- 
late self, and then to efface the most minute traces 
of that very annihilation — that was the task of this 
heroic girl." 

And because her enthusiasm was the enthusiasm 
of victory, we see it lasting through her whole life 
and rising superior to every discouragement and 
obstacle. It was no mere short-lived ardor, the 
first warm outflow of a loving nature, gradually quiet- 
ing and cooling as time went on. She had abun- 
dance of time to reconsider, as we shall see, and she 
had every encouragement to do so. But there is 
no. evidence of a moment's shrinking from the life 
she had chosen. From her brother we have mournful 
confessions of a relapse into what he considered world- 



122 Sister and Saint. 

liness, and Madame Perier's letters in later years 
show an occasional interest in earthly and secular 
matters. But in Jacqueline there is, from beginning 
to end, the same calm, equable flow of assurance of 
her high vocation and sacred joy in it. 

In May M. Pascal arrived in Paris, and now it be- 
came necessary to inform him of Jacqueline's resolu- 
tion. 

Evidently everybody dreaded this duty. " M. 
Singlin thought he ought to be told," says Gilberte, 
and again, " My brother undertook to tell him. There 
was no one else who could." " The proposal," she 
continues, " surprised and strangely agitated my 
father. On the one hand, having begun to love the 
principles of a pure Christianity, he was glad to have 
his children like-minded ; but, on the other, his affection 
for my sister was so deep and tender that he could 
not resolve to give her up forever. These conflicting 
thoughts made him at first answer that he would see 
and think about it. But finally, after some vacilla- 
tions, he said plainly that he would never give his 
consent, and even complained that my brother had 
encouraged the plan without knowing whether it 
would meet his approval. This consideration made 
him so angry with my brother and sister, that he lost 
his confidence in them, and ordered an old waiting- 
woman who had brought them both up, to watch 
their movements. This was a great restraint upon 



Climbing. 123 

my sister, for she could not go to Port Royal except 
by stealth, nor see M. Singlin without some contriv- 
ance or dexterous excuse/' 

Here, then, was a sad state of things between this 
daughter, hitherto so faithful, and the father who 
" loved her with unusual tenderness." 

But Jacqueline thought herself justified in secretly 
evading his will, though she would not openly dis- 
obey him. "Though under many restrictions she 
did not give up her occasional visits to Port Royal, 
nor her correspondence with its inmates, which she 
managed with much tact ! " 

Our fancy follows the plainly-robed figure, quickly 
threading the narrow streets of the old " Latin 
Quarter " for some brief appointment with her con- 
fessor, fearful, perhaps, at every corner, of meeting 
her father or seeing the face of the old waiting- 
woman peering at her from behind some little shop- 
window. She passes the Hotel Cluny, where a few 
years before she might have found the Mere Angel- 
ique and some of her nuns. She passes the Sor- 
bonne, and it frowns upon her. At last she is " quite 
in the country " and stops before " a noble house with 
magnificent gardens." Church, school-house, infirm- 
aries, storehouses, and offices cluster about it. This 
is Port Royal de Paris, now " La Maternite," one of 
the largest hospitals of Paris. 

The dear Mothers Angelique and Agnes loved very 



124 Sister and Saint. 

tenderly this warm-hearted young disciple. Yet they 
were far too true and upright to urge her coming to 
them till she could obtain her father's full permis- 
sion. 

" I am as truly, dear child, your spiritual mother," 
says Angelique, " as if }^ou were already within the 
convent walls." And Agnes writes to her: "You are 
already a nun, my dear sister, because you have de- 
termined to obey the call which God has given you ; 
but you will cease to be one if you wish to forestall 
the precise moment of your profession which God 
has put in His own power." " It is your duty to fol- 
low God's guidance and to endure with meekness the 
delays occasioned by His providence. There is quite 
as much sin in wishing to anticipate the will of God 
as there would be in not obeying it at the proper 
time." 

Toward the end of this year, 1648, we find the last 
of the joint letters from Blaise and Jacqueline to 
their sister. It is much too long to give entire, but 
some extracts will serve to show its tenor : 

"And now we have a little private scolding for 
yourself. What made you say that you had learned 
everything in your letter from me ? For I have no 
recollection of having spoken to you on the subject 
And were what you say true, I should fear that you 
had learned the lesson in a wrong spirit, or you would 
have lost the thought of the human teacher in think- 



Climbing. 1 2 5 

ing of God, who alone who can make the truth 

effectual Not that we are to be ungrateful or 

forgetful of those who have instructed us when 
duly authorized, as priests, bishops, and confessors 
are. They are teachers and other men are their 
disciples. But it is very different in our case, and 
as the angel refused to be worshiped by one who 
was his fellow-servant, so we must beg you not to 
pay us such compliments again, nor to use expres- 
sions of human gratitude, since we are but learners 
like yourself. ,, .... 

" The perseverance of the saints is neither more 
nor less than God's grace perpetually imparted, and 
not given once for all, in a mass that is to last for- 
ever. This teaches us how completely we are de- 
pendent on God's mercy ; for if He should for a 
moment withhold the sap of His grace we should 
wither away." .... 

" Fear not to remind us of things we already know. 
They need to sink deeper into our hearts, and your 
discourse will be more likely to fix them there. And 
besides, divine grace is given in answer to prayer, 
and your love for us is one of those prayers which go 
up without ceasing before the Throne" 

M. Perier was at that time building a country- 
seat, which still stands at Bienassis, near the gates of 
Clermont. The brother and sister refer to it in this 
way: 



126 Sister and Saint. 

u We have nothing special to say to you unless 
about the plan of your house. We know that M. 
Perier is too earnest in what he undertakes to be able 
to give full attention to two things at once ; and the 
whole plan is so extensive that if he carry it out it 

must engross his thoughts for a long time So 

we have advised him to build on a more moderate 
scale, and only that which is absolutely necessary. 
.... We beg you to think seriously of this and to 
second our advice, lest he should be more prudent 
and take more pains in the erection of a house which 
he is not obliged to rear than in the building of that 
mystic tower whereof St. Augustine speaks in one of 
his letters, which he is solemnly pledged to finish. 
Adieu. B. P. J. P." 

Then follows a postscript by Jacqueline : 

" I hope soon to write about my own concerns, and 
give you full particulars ; meantime, pray to God for 
my success." And after that a line in her brother's 
handwriting : " If you know any charitable souls, be- 
speak their prayers for me, too." Poor Blaise ! An- 
other glimpse into his troubled heart ! 

By her " own concerns," Jacqueline, of course, 
means her plan of going into the convent. She let 
slip no opportunity of announcing her determination 
to take the veil, and, though yielding literal obedi- 
ence to her father in not leaving his house, she 
thought it right to prove to him by her manner of 



Climbing. 127 

life that she was immovable in her decision. If she 
could not be a nun at Port Royal, she would be a 
nun at home. Her sister says : 

" The difficulties she met with did not lessen her 
zeal, and having renounced the world in heart, she 
no longer took the same delight as formerly in 
amusements. So that, although for a while she con- 
cealed her intention of devoting herself to God, it 
was easily perceived, and she then withdrew from 
society and broke off suddenly from all her acquaint- 
ance. For this a favorable opportunity was offered 
by my father's changing his residence. She made no 
acquaintances in her new neighborhood, and escaped 
from her old ones by never visiting them. Thus she 
found herself at liberty to live in solitude, which be- 
came so pleasant to her that she gradually retired 
even from the family circle, and sometimes spent the 
whole day alone in her chamber. It is impossible to 
say how she employed herself in this perfect soli- 
tude, but each day it could be perceived that she was 
visibly growing in grace." 

Her determination was not without its effect on 
her father. Madame Perier says again : 

" My father was well persuaded that she had 
chosen the better part, and parental tenderness alone 
made him oppose her project. Finding, therefore, 
that each day only strengthened her resolve, he told 
her that he saw plainly the world had no interest for 



128 Sister and Saint. 

her, that he fully approved her design and would 
promise never to listen to any proposals for her set- 
tlement in marriage, however advantageous, but that 
he begged of her not to leave him, that his life would 
not be very long, and that if she would only be 
patient till its close, he would allow her to live as she 
chose at home. She thanked him, but made no posi- 
tive answer to his entreaty that she would not leave 
him, promising, however, that he should never have 
any reason to complain of her disobedience. " 

Some time after she had entered on this way of 
life, the father, brother, and sister made a visit to- 
gether at Clermont. 

" She greatly dreaded this journey/ ' says Madame 
Perier, " because of the influx of relatives and com- 
pany to which one is exposed in a little country 
town, and accordingly she wrote me that in order to 
avoid this probable embarrassment, she thought I 
had better publicly announce her determination to 
take the veil, and that her profession was only de- 
ferred out of respect for my father's wishes. I did 
not fail to fulfill my commission, and it succeeded so 
well that on her arrival no one was surprised to see 
her dressed like an old woman, with great simplicity, 
nor that after having returned the first calls of civil- 
ity, she shut herself up, not merely in the house, but 
in her room, which she left only to go to church or 
to take her meals, and into which none ever intruded. 



Climbing, 129 

So that even in my own case, if I had anything to 
tell her, I used to make a little memorandum or some 
kind of mark, that I might remember it when she 
came to table or on our way to church, whither we 
always went together. This was my best opportunity 
of speaking to her, though very short, as we had not 
far to go. Not that she forbade me or any one else 
to enter her room, nor that she refused to listen, but 
that we saw whenever her thoughts were called off 
in order to talk on subjects not absolutely necessary, 
it evidently tired and wearied her so much that we 
tried to avoid giving her the annoyance." 

This was the state of things in the family for the 
next three years, while M. Pascal appears to have 
been vibrating between Paris, Rouen, and Clermont, 
and Blaise was fulfilling, as best he could, that wise 
prescription of the doctors, to think of nothing, have 
no cares, and lead a happy life. 




PORT ROYAL AND THE MERE 
ANGELIQUE. 



X. 

PORT ROYAL AND THE M&RE ANGEXIQUE. 

FORT ROYAL is another of those charmed 
names of history. And it is worth noticing 
that its charm is simply the pure halo of good- 
ness — goodness so thorough and direct that the world 
has called it heroism. 

No famous battles, visible to the eye of flesh, were 
ever fought in that narrow valley of Chevreuse, and 
few stirring events took place there till the very last 
years of the convent's five centuries of life. 

Neither is there anything imposing or strikingly 
beautiful in the natural features of the place. The 
nuns came to love it as we all love our homes, and 
some of them, in their letters affectionately refer to 
the peaceful, church-like vale, with its walls of wooded 
hills and its high, blue, starry roof. 

But Madame de Sevigne, who looked at it through 
quite other, though not unfriendly, eyes, speaks of it 
as " un desert afflux/' And in reality it was an 111- 

(133) 



154 Sister and Saint. 

drained (rather an un-drained\ marshy spot, full of 
confined and noxious airs, and owing its very name to 
the corrupt Latin word porra. which means " a hol- 
low, overgrown with brambles, containing stagnant 
water." 

This valley, the site of the original convent, known 
as Port Royal des Champs, lies about eighteen miles 
from Paris, on the road between Versailles and Chev- 
reuse. From the restored splendors of Louis Four- 
teenth's court one may drive in about an hour to this 
neglected spot. There, a recent visitor tells us, M noth- 
ing of interest remains to-day but a ruined fragment 
of wall to which has been built a rough, shed-like 
structure, surmounted by a wooden cross." L'nder 
this shelter there have been collected a few portraits, 
among them those of Agnes Arnauld, Jansen, St. 
Cyran, Racine, and Pascal. 

The history of Port Royal, from its foundation in 
1208 till the close of the sixteenth century, does not 
concern u:. It is but the common and painful story 
of many so-called u religious houses." 

A convent in theory was a beautiful thing, a place 
where humility, chastity, poverty, obedience, self-de- 
nial, and charity prevailed. A convent in reality was 
often a place where unmarriageable women led lives 
as easy and, in many cases, as sinful as a very lax 
discipline would permit. 

Under Ang^lique Arnauld the theory became the 



Port Royal and the Mere Angelique. 135 

reality, and if we first glance at her life and character 
we shall best read the true story of Port Royal. 

The story of this noble and charming woman is 
more fascinating than many a romance. At seven 
years of age she finds herself a nun, at eleven years 
an abbess, while her little sister Agnes, six years old, 
takes the same office in the neighboring convent of 
St. Cyr. For the Arnaulds are a large family — 
twenty children in all — and something must be done 
with these little girls or there will not be marriage 
dowries enough for all. 

Only ten of the twenty children lived to grow up ; 
but of these — six daughters and four sons — every one 
was famous. And as we shall meet some of them occa- 
sionally at Port Royal, a few words of introduction, 
just here, may not come amiss. 

First in age came d'Andilly, so named from his es- 
tate, whom we may remember as the " friend par ex- 
cellence" of St. Cyran. He was a noble, generous, 
talented man, full of winning qualities. He was very 
popular at court, and it was through his influence that 
many of the royal and noble converts to the truth 
were made. It was through him that the Duchess 
d'Aiguillon became interested in St. Cyran and visited 
him at Vincennes. 

Next to d'Andilly came the eldest sister* Madame 
le Maitre, in reference to whom Angelique, when a 
little girl, exclaimed, " Oh, how unlucky I am to be 



136 Sister and Saint. 



the second daughter, for if I had been the eldest, I 
should have been the one to be married ! " 

Madame le Maitre's " luck/' however, was but poor. 
Her marriage was anything but happy, and years 
afterward she came, only too gladly, to seek refuge in 
her sister's convent. She brought with her a humble, 
tender heart and a practical head, and was a great 
favorite in the house. Before she took the veil, and 
thus gave up all claim to her property, she obtained 
permission to visit all the offices of the convent and 
ascertain what was wanting in them. " My sisters," 
she said to the nuns, " tell me all your little wants, 
for before long I shall have nothing to give away." 
And then, like a good housewife, she set everything 
in order, and provided whatever seemed necessary for 
the comfort and convenience of the household. 

Next on the family list come Angelique and Agnes, 
who were early disposed of as we have seen. Their 
grandfather, M. Marion, was a friend of the king, 
who conferred ecclesiastical dignities, and the pope's 
sanction was easily obtained by sending to Rome 
false certificates of the children's age. Nobody seems 
to have regarded this step as a particularly dishonor- 
able one. " The king only laughed," we are told, 
" to think how his Holiness had been tricked." The 
children themselves, however, took the matter more 
seriously. When their grandfather informed them of 
their fate, Angelique " ran off into a long gallery, cry- 
ing with vexation and anger." 



Port Royal and the Mere Angelique. 137 

" But/' explained her grandfather, " I shall make 
you an abbess, the mistress of all the others." 

This promise consoled her a little, and she finally 
said : " Grandpapa, if you wish me to be a nun, I will 
be a nun ; but not unless you make me an abbess." 

"And I," said Agnes, " I am willing to be a nun 
too ; but I don't want to be an abbess." 

A few days later they were again in their grand- 
father's study, and the little Agnes spoke up : 
u Grandpapa, I have quite made up my mind not to 
be an abbess, for they say an abbess has to answer to 
God for the souls of her nuns, and I am sure I shall 
have quite enough to do to save my own." 

" But / want to be an abbess," said Angelique 
eagerly, " and I shall take good care that my nuns do 
their duty and behave well." 

The characteristics shown in this childish conversa- 
tion remained with the sisters through life. Angelique 
was born to command — to lead other souls with her 
own " to glory and virtue." Agnes was timid, shrink- 
ing, and though full of charity and good works, 
much occupied with her own growth in grace. 

Henri Arnauld was the next child, and he became 
famous as bishop of Angers and Cardinal Mazarin's 
ambassador at the Papal Court. 

Then comes " Sister Anne," of whom we shall see 
more as Jacqueline Pascal's predecessor in teaching 
the convent school, and after her, Marie Claire, the 



1 3S Sister and Saint. 

one whose struggle against St. Cyran's influence we 
have recorded. 

A valiant soldier, Simon Arnauld, is the next child, 
and next to him the pretty Madeleine, of whom St. 
Francis de Sales predicted when she was a child that 
she would become a nun if her mirror did not stand 
in the way. It did not stand in the way. At fifteen 
she became a novice, and in due time entered the sis- 
terhood at Port Royal. 

The twentieth and last child was Antoine, known 
as the " great Arnauld." He was twenty-four years 
younger than his eldest brother, d'Andilly, and his 
nephew Le Maitre was some years older than he. 
It would take a volume merely to mention all that 
this great man did and all that he wrote in the cause 
of Jansenism and of theological truth as he viewed it. 
He worked hand in hand with Blaise Pascal, and the 
two were devoted friends, though not agreeing on all 
points. 

Let us notice, in passing, that the paternal grand- 
father of all these Arnaulds — not the one who ob- 
tained the abbacies — was at one time a Huguenot. 
" He was led away into the error of Calvinism," say 
the annals, " but after a time God opened his eyes, 
though this can not be said with regard to several 
members of his family." 

And now we must come back to our young An- 
gelique. Very pretty are the legends of the child- 



Port Royal and the Mere Angelique. 139 

abbess, marching with white robe and uplifted crozier 
at the head of her nuns, receiving in the convent gar- 
den the homage of the king, Henry Fourth, rebuking 
the familiarity of the courtiers, and altogether making 
an edifying exhibition of infant piety. 

More touching, because more true, is the tale of 
her girlhood, when she awoke to the reality of her 
position — the bitter irksomeness of her duties — the 
longing for freedom — the conscientious chafing under 
false vows. At one time, in despair, she nightly 
studied over her chances of escaping to her Huguenot 
aunts at Rochelle, and talking over the whole subject 
with them. " Oh, if she had only done that," we are 
inclined to exclaim, " what a new light might have 
been shed upon her path ! " Yet, if she ^z^done that, 
what a beautiful chapter of faith and love and cour- 
age and purity in the midst of corruption would have 
been lost to history! The Lord who was leading 
her led her aright ! 

After giving up this plan of escape, there came a 
strong-willed effort to make her life endurable by the 
study of Greek and Roman history, " Plutarch's 
Lives," and other not too secular subjects; then a 
long illness, brought on by mental conflict, and at 
last, one summer evening, after listening to the 
preaching of an itinerant Capuchin friar (who soon 
after became a Huguenot), she suddenly found, in 
complete surrender to her Lord and to His work, a 



140 Sister and Saint. 

fuller and a sweeter liberty than she had ever sighed 
for. Henceforth she becomes the Mere Angelique 
indeed, and at seventeen begins her career as reform- 
er : first of her own convent, and afterward, by order 
of her ecclesiastical superiors,, of many others through- 
out France. 

Ange'lique's life, as given in the " Memoirs of Port 
Royal." is a series of delightful anecdotes. It is al- 
most impossible to classify them, for is she not a 
woman? — a bundle of contrarieties? — but each one 
reveals some brave or tender trait. How high-spir- 
ited she is, — how independent, — how unyielding 
when her will is fully set to do that which she 
thinks right ! In the early days of her reforms there 
was abundant need for this strength of will. 

Her hardest task was probably her very first. 

The original rules of her convent allowed inter- 
course with visitors only through the grating of the 
convent parlor, and so the father, mother, brothers 
and sisters who had regarded Port Royal almost as a 
second home, must be excluded. A whole long day 
the contest went on between a father indignant and 
argumentative by turns, a grieved and weeping 
mother, d'Andilly angry and sarcastic, and Anne 
and Marie Claire astonished and speechless — all these 
on the one side, and this pale, slender girl of eighteen 
on the other. She carried her point, but she fell 
fainting the moment it was gained. 



Port Royal and the Mere Angelique. 141 

Through life the same strength and decision were 
hers, and in her seventieth year she speaks with 
compunction of her " brusque, imperious nature and 
habit of command." One day a visiting nun from 
Poissy told how in her convent they had cut off part 
of the chants as a mortification. " Much better have 
cut off the tails of your gowns," was the quick retort 
from the aged abbess, who had always hated nonsense. 
And in her very last days a box on the epr was not 
too severe a punishment for a foolish nun who tried 
to make out that the reverend mother had miracu- 
lously caused some heavy bread to become light. 

Yet how tender she was ! — how thoughtful in her 
tenderness ! There was a certain Sister Marguerite, 
who caused the abbess much trouble, and in the end 
proved incorrigible. After a violent outbreak of 
temper, Angelique would not allow her to partake of 
the Holy Communion, and, in anger at this, Sister 
Marguerite ran away. The abbess and her nuns 
fasted many days, and prayed that the Lord would 
have mercy on the wanderer and restore her to them, 
and at length she was sent to them from a convent 
in Paris. It was evening when she arrived, and when 
Angelique heard the carriage wheels, she had all the 
lights put out, so that no one might see the penitent 
in her humiliation. She stood alone at the open door, 
took Sister Marguerite in her arms and kissed her, 
and " Oh, my dear child ! " were all the words she said. 



142 Sister and Saint. 

Though strict in requiring renunciation where she 
thought it a duty, the Mere Angelique would not 
allow unnecessary discomfort. On chilly mornings, 
after matins (at four o'clock), she would with her own 
hands make a fire and insist on every one going to 
warm herself. She often visited the kitchen and 
tasted the food, to be sure that it was palatable. The 
cook, at one time, was a lay-sister of another order of 
nuns, and ate no meat. The consequence was that 
her own dinner, unless she prepared one especially 
for herself, w T as apt to be poor, and the abbess, sus- 
pecting this, followed her one day to the refectory 
and saw what she was about to eat — the scraps left 
from the last convent fast-day. Angelique brought 
some eggs, beat them up and made an omelette, say- 
ing to her lay-sister, as she set it before her, that 
whenever she neglected to provide a dinner for her- 
self, the thing would be repeated. The cook w r as 
filled with confusion at being waited on by her Lady 
Superior, but she could not help laughing as she de- 
clared it was the best omelette she had ever eaten. 

Great was this woman's faith ! At one time she 
wanted three hundred francs to send to the farm at 
Port Royal des Champs, six hundred for another con- 
vent, a hundred and fifty to pay a debt, and two 
hundred for the butcher. "I had not a single sou," 
she writes, " so I went to my room and prayed to God 
for the money, and when my prayer was ended, a 



Port Royal and the Mere Angelique. 143 

widow lady came to me, and said she had changed 
her mind as to the disposal of two thousand three 
hundred francs she had laid by, and instead of keep- 
ing them herself, she wished to give them to me for 
our immediate use. And after this, people tell me to 
ask alms of man and not of God! Indeed I shall 
ask God ! I shall always beg from God and not from 
man ! " 

During the civil wars in 1652, manufactures were 
suspended, and the common serge worn by the nuns 
of Port Royal became very difficult to procure. A 
few pieces of greatly inferior quality had remained 
unsold from previous years, and these were now 
offered for sale at war prices — nearly double the 
former price of the good article. 

M. Guais, who acted as the Mere Angelique's agent 
in such matters, had been asked to try to find some 
serge, but he was unwilling to buy so poor an article 
at so high a price, especially as the convent was just 
now low in funds. He was, therefore, delighted one 
day at finding some Ras de Nord 9 a very beautiful and 
durable material, which, by some chance, he could get 
at a very low price. He bought a piece at once and 
sent it to Port Royal, confidently expecting an order 
for more. But Angelique wrote back, " I would much 
rather buy the common stuffs, at double the price, 
than suffer these fine ones to enter the community. 
I consider the money I shall pay not in the light of 



144 Sister and Saint. 

a dear price paid for an article of dress, but as a 

cheap price to keep vanity and finer*}' out of a re- 
ligious house." tk Things are not always to be esti- 
mated at the money they cost. That must ever be 
a dear purchase which is at the price of Christian sim- 
plicity." Since, however, the unlucky M. Guais had 
bought one piece, she decided to keep it, but it was 
all cut up into stockings, where its beauty could do no 
harm ! 

Dear saint ! Notwithstanding her precautions the 
annals of the convent show now and then a loophole 
for feminine vanity. Even the reverend Mother her- 
self is said to have had one weakness — a large yellow 
patch on her white gown, which she contemplated 
with immense satisfaction. " Patches," she used to 
say, "are a nun's jewels." 

This genuine love of " sacred poverty " is one of 
Angelique's strongest characteristics. Money, to her 
mind, was simply and absolutely a means to an end. 
Millions of francs passed through her hands, for at 
one time Port Royal was very much the fashion, and 
court and nobility lavished gifts upon it. But the 
wish to possess any of this money — the desire to own 
even a book or a relic, seems to have been unknown 
to her. Everything was absolutely in common, and 
even St. Francis' letters, her greatest treasures, she 
regarded as the property of the convent. Avarice 
she speaks of as a "curious" passion. She can not 
understand it. 



Port Royal and the Mere Angelique. 145 

" It is scarcely credible," say the " Memoirs," " how 
many families, both of the poor and of the reduced 
gentry, were relieved during the civil wars by the 
bounty of Port Royal." 

The embroidery and fancy-work common among 
nuns were an abomination to Angelique, but the 
sisters were taught, with infinite patience, economy 
and neatness, to repair their own garments, and to 
make up into clothing for the poor every available 
remnant and scrap. Nothing was too sacred for use 
in charity. The gold and silver candlesticks of the 
church service were more than once sold for the 
benefit of the poor, and the very napkins off the altar 
torn into bandages for the wounded. 

There was a permanent infirmary within the con- 
vent gates where women and children were nursed 
and medicines were dispensed. With her own hands 
the reverend Mother would strip off their rags, wash, 
clothe, and tend them. She was by nature skillful in 
all woman's work, and had the cheerfulness, tact, and 
presence of mind in the sick-room that are the sure 
signs of a good nurse. No disease, however loath- 
some or infectious, dismayed her, and she learned to 
use the lancet as well as a surgeon. 

It was in such service as this that Angelique and 
her nuns passed their days, and in this way they man- 
ifested their piety. " Perfection," the dear Mother 
often said, " consists not in doing extraordinary 
7 



146 Sister and Saint. 

things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily 
well." " Neglect nothing/' again she would say. 
" The most trivial action may be performed to God. 
Even in rising to matins, be careful to make no noise, 
lest you disturb invalids ; if Christian charity be in 
your heart your whole life may be a continual exer- 
cise of it." " Oh, if we did but love others how easily 
the least thing, the shutting a door gently, the walk- 
ing softly, speaking low, not making a noise, or the 
choice of a seat so as to leave the most convenient to 
others, might become occasions of its exercise. ,, 
Truly, we are inclined to say with Jacqueline 
Pascal, " at Port Royal one might reasonably be a 
nun." 

One secret of the Mere Angelique's success was her 
quick insight into character. One day four candi- 
dates were ushered into the convent parlor. The 
abbess, as they entered, watched them closely, and 
whispered to the nun who sat by her, " That little 
one at the back is the only one that will stay." And 
she did stay, while the others, after due probation, 
were sent home. 

Another secret of her success was her fine tact. A 
querulous and troublesome nun was once confined by 
illness to the infirmary where the abbess herself, on 
account of some indisposition, was also spending a 
few days. They were once left quite alone and unat- 
tended for some time, and the nun took occasion to 



Port Royal and the Mere Angelique. 147 

remark that it was very provoking of the sisters to 
leave their reverend mother so long. " Oh, no," said 
the abbess, cheerfully. " It is good for me to be left. 
You know sick persons so easily slide into self-indul- 
gence. Think how many single ladies, of rank and 
expectations far above mine, are, perhaps, through 
misfortune, at this moment destitute of any attend- 
ance. Many are thankful and happy in having only 
one little maid to do everything for them, and while 
she is out on business they must be left alone. So, 
my dear daughter, when we call and nobody answers, 
let us fancy that the little maid is gone to market, 
and wait patiently till she returns/' The pleasant 
words were not forgotten, and when the sister after- 
ward felt inclined to complain, she would say, laugh- 
ingly, " My mother, the little maid is gone to market," 
It is impossible in a chapter to do anything like 
justice to Angelique Arnauld. The records of her in 
the various Memoirs of Port Royal are an " embar- 
ras du richesse," and we can but gather up a few frag- 
ments. We can give but a line to her well-trained 
intellect — to the wisdom of her counsels to the Jan- 
senist leaders — her clear-sightedness in regard to the 
movements of their Jesuit persecutors — the force of 
her few published writings — the charm of her familiar 
letters. Altogether, her character is like some many- 
sided crystal — sparkling, whichever way we turn it. 
She is one of the Lord's own jewels. And through 
each clear-cut facet shines the same pure Light. 



AT THE CONVENT GATES. 



XL 



AT THE CONVENT GATES. 



]T is easy to see how with such a woman at its head, 
or rather, at its heart, Port Royal became the nu- 
cleus of the reforming party in the Church. An- 
gelique Arnauld was, indeed, in its early days, the 
leading spirit of that noble band — that " fountain 
of sweet waters in the midst of the brackish sea." 
Gladly enough, however, she gave place to her re- 
vered spiritual father, St. Cyran, and when he was 
gone and she was beginning to feel the burden of 
years, her young brother and Pascal, her nephews, 
and hosts of friends were ready to step into the front 
ranks. 

While Jacqueline Pascal was still a little girl, the 
nuns had moved from the valley of Chevreuse to 
Paris. Port Royal had become so popular that the 
house was too small for the many applicants for pro- 
bation. " Besides," say the chronicles, " the situation 
became exceedingly damp and unhealthy. The whole 

(151) 



152 Sister and Saint. 

monaster}- was continually enveloped in a thick fog. 
The house at length became a complete infirmary. 
Deaths constantly succeeded each other ; yet num- 
bers of fresh postulants were perpetually offering." 

Madame Arnauld was now a widow, and her six 
daughters urged her to come and be a nun with them. 
She was a woman of lovely Christian spirit, but up to 
this time had naturally not felt herself called to the 
life of the cloister, having been married at fourteen 
and occupied with the care of her twenty children. 
She laughed when the proposition was first made to 
her, and said: "How can I begin to learn obedience 
at fifty, when I have been exercising authority since 
I was fifteen?" But she finally decided on the step ; 
first, however, buying M a noble house with magnifi- 
cent gardens " in the Faubourg St. Jacques, employ- 
ing one of the first architects of the day to build a 
church attached to it, and bearing the expenses of 
the removal from Port Royal des Champs to Paris. 

It was a few years after this that some of St. Cy- 
ran's disciples, prominent among them Ang61ique's 
nephews, the Le Maitres, withdrew from the world 
into profound retirement, gave up their lives to wor- 
ship and charity, and became known as Recluses. 
The little house which they took in Paris soon proving 
too small for their increasing numbers, " they deter- 
mined to go to Port Royal des Champs and take pos- 
session of the convent the nuns had abandoned. 



At the Convent Gates. 153 

There they found everything bearing marks of the 
most complete desolation. The lakes, for want of 
draining, were converted into noxious marshes, over- 
grown with reeds and other aquatic plants ; they con- 
tinually exhaled the most pestilential vapors. The 
grounds were in many parts completely overflowed. 
The gardens were not only overgrown with weeds and 
brushwood, but the very walks were infected with 
venomous serpents." 

" The hermits, however, were not to be deterred by 
trivial inconveniences. Many of them were young 
men of the first families in France, yet they did not 
disdain to labor with their own hands. The little com- 
pany set joyfully to work, and the aspect of the valley 
was soon transformed. The surface of the swampy 
morass soon exhibited a clear lake, whose waters re- 
flected the hills around, crowned with thick forests of 
oak. The tangled brushwood was felled. The spa- 
cious gardens blossomed as the rose, and the (rebuilt) 
walls of Port Royal arose from the ground amidst 
hymns of prayer and shouts of praise. 

" New associates were continually quitting the world 
and joining themselves to this little band. After a 
short period it became a numerous and flourishing 
society. Regular plans and an orderly distribution of 
employments were soon found necessary." 

" The Recluses of Port Royal, unlike religious 
orders, were not bound by any vows. Each, never- 
7* 



154 Sister and Saint 

theless, sought to imitate his Lord, and follow His 
steps, by a life of voluntary poverty, penance, and 
self-denial. They assumed the dress of no particular 
order; yet they were easily distinguished by their 
coarse and plain, but clean clothing. Their time was 
divided between their devotions to God and their 
services to men. They all met together several times, 
both in the day and night, in the church. Twice 
each day, also, the whole company met in the refec- 
tory. Some hours were occupied by each in his own 
cell, in meditation, in private prayer, and in dili- 
gently reading and comparing the Holy Scriptures, 
which they always did in the attitude, as well as in 
the spirit of prayer, and to which exercise they de- 
voted a portion of time every day. Their directors 
always advised them to begin by studying the Holy 
Scripture itself, without any commentary, seeking 
only for edification." 

But as years went on over these recluses and over 
Angelique's sisterhood in the city, that " noble 
house " in turn became too strait for its occupants. 
It became necessary to divide them, and send part of 
the number back to the valley of Chevreuse. How 
they came back we will learn by again quoting from 
the " Select Memoirs." 

" The news of the nuns* intended return was soon 
spread at Port Royal. The whole neighborhood 
evinced the greatest joy. It was delightful again to 
see them after so many years of absence. 



At the Convent Gates. 155 

" The recluses made every exertion to prepare the 
house and gardens. They put them in the best order 
for their friends. Their own books and furniture 
were soon packed up. On the morning of the very 
day the nuns were expected, they removed from the 
monastery. They took possession of a farm-house 
(Les Granges) which was situated at the top of the 
hill." " The Mere Angelique came in person to 
establish the nuns in their former habitation. On the 
day she was expected all the poor flocked to the 
monastery in their best clothes. As soon as the long 
file of carriages appeared through the woods at the 
top of the hill, they went to meet her. The bells 
were immediately rung; shouts of joy and exclama- 
tions of pleasure resounded on all sides. The pro- 
cession stopped ; then the poor with tears implored 
their good mother's benediction. She tenderly em- 
braced them. At the church door she was met by 
all the recluses. They led the nuns into the choir, 
and after service, left them in possession of the con- 
vent and retired to their new habitation." 

" The nuns and recluses never saw each other but 
at church ; even there a grate separated them ; nor 
had they any intercourse, though so nearly related, 

except by letter The recluses continued all 

their former occupations ; they conducted the farms 
and gardens and performed every other laborious 
office." 



156 Sister and Saint. 



Under the wise care of these kind friends and 
brothers, and by means of the princely gifts which 
about this time flowed into the convent treasury, 
Port Royal tics Champs became a very different place 
from the malarious valley we have seen it. The 
farms were much improved and became very pro- 
ductive. "The stagnant waters were drained and 
formed into clear lakes abounding with fish. The 
fields, gardens, and orchards were assiduously cul- 
tivated and enlarged." The fruit of Port Royal, in- 
deed, was celebrated for its extraordinary size and 
fine flavor, so much so, that when M. d'Andilly an- 
nually sent presents to the Queen Mother, Anne of 
Austria, Cardinal Mazarin used to call it " fruit 
benit." 

.Such were the two houses of Port Royal when Jac- 
queline Pascal first became interested in the convent. 

The Mere Angelique was not perpetual abbess of 
either house. One of her early acts of humility had 
been the securing of triennial elections for this office. 
But she was very frequently elected to it, as was also 
her sister Agnes. While they were still young girls, 
by the request of both sisters, Agnes had been al- 
lowed to give up the abbacy of her convent of St. 
Cyr and become a simple nun of Port Royal under 
Angelique. She had not lost her childish dread of 
the dignity, yet, after all, as we have said, she could 
altogether escape it. 



At the Convent Gates. 157 



The M£re Agnes is a very interesting character, 
though differing greatly from her sister. She was 
something of a mystic by nature, and would gladly 
have spent her life in perpetual adoration. Her fav- 
orite book in her youth was the Life of St. Theresa. 
She pored devotedly over its pages while Angelique 
was reading Plutarch's Lives. 

One day while she was a novice she was carrying a 
can of oil to clean the choir lamps, and spilled it over 
her dress and on the steps of the church. Any other 
novice would have been greatly troubled at such an 
accident, but to the lips of Agnes rose the words, 
" Thy name is as oil poured forth. " She meditated 
a few moments on her loving thought, but then hum- 
bly wiped up the oil and went to her sister, the 
young abbess, to confess her fault. 

Angelique, though she had a great admiration for 
her younger sister, thought she was in danger of 
being led away by prayer and fasting from the prac- 
tical work of life. One day as a " mortification " she 
sent for Agnes to come out of church, and she came 
"weeping bitterly." Many years afterward, when 
Agnes was abbess, Angelique said to her one day, 
" Ah, mother abbess, do you remember the day when 
I fetched you weeping from the choir, because you 
cared for nothing but prayer ? It is forty years ago, 
but I am sure that if I were to keep you away from 
church now, you would weep as bitterly as you did 
then. Truly there is no cure for our old diseases." 



158 Sister and Saint. 

Nothing is told us of the Mere Ang&lique's per- 
sonal appearance, but Agnes' sweet face is often 
spoken of. Among the few ornaments allowed at 
Port Royal was a large painting on the refectory 
wall, by Philip de Champagne, representing the M&re 
Agnes on her knees by the bedside of a sick nun, 
praying for her recovery. The prayer was granted, 
and the event gratefully commemorated in this way.* 

Agnes Arnauld was the author of several little devo- 
tional books. One of these, " Le Chapelet Secret," had 
the honor of being condemned by the doctors of the 
Sorbonne and suppressed by the Pope. Another, 
the " Portrait of a Perfect and an Imperfect Nun," has 
been said to " display so much spiritual acumen, that 
if entitled, ' The Portrait of a Consistent and a Half- 
hearted Christian/ it would not be unworthy of a 
place beside the soul-searching treatises of her Puritan 
contemporaries." 

It was the M&re Agnes who, for the most part, 
kept up the correspondence with Jacqueline Pascal 
during the latter's years of waiting outside the con- 
vent gates. Regularly every month a letter came, 
always full of affection, and usually of sound advice. 

"Yesterday," runs one of them, "we had an ad- 
mirable sermon from M. Singlin ; I could have 
wished you had been there, but for the fear that it 

* Mrs. Tameson gives a sketch of this picture in her " Legends of 
the Monastic Orders." 



At the Convent Gates. 159 

might have excited your desire of taking the veil, 
and made your present state of suspense more 
painful." 

Again, " If you do not possess your soul in peace 
and perfect submission, you must cease the repetition 
of the Lord's Prayer, for the phrase, ' Thy will be 
done on earth as it is in heaven/ includes the renun- 
ciation of every possible wish which does not har- 
monize with God's will. I do not believe, dear sister, 
that you can desire to have things arranged in any 
other way than as God chooses ; for a conventual life 
will not make you what He designs to have you be- 
come, unless you enter upon it in accordance with 
His will, and at the hour of His appointment." 

And yet once more, " You are bound to accept the 
answer given you by your father as a decree of God, 
who sees fit to reserve some other season for the 
gracious fulfillment of those desires He has inspired 
within you/' 

Some of Angelique's wise instructions, taken down 
from her lips (by stealth, for the abbess would never 
allow it to be done with her knowledge), were copied 
and sent to Jacqueline. We must quote one passage, 
even at the risk of becoming wearisome : 

" It may be said with equal advantage, both to the 
novice who has her profession to make and to the 
nun who has already made it on the best grounds, 
examine your own hearts. There is an indolent re- 



160 Sister and Saint. 

tirement from the world which arises from sloth ; 
there is a selfish retirement, which originates in a 
misanthropic absorption in our own concerns ; there 
is a melancholy retirement, which is grounded on dis- 
appointed self-love ; and there is a philosophic re- 
tirement which has its basis in pride and contempt 
of others. Far different from all these is a genuine 
religious retirement. The Christian's seclusion is 
founded on a deep experience of the deceitfulness of 
his own heart ; nor is it deserving of that holy name 
unless while he comes out from the world to wait in 
silence upon God, he also diligently labors, by his 
industry and talents, as well as in his prayers, to serve 
to the very uttermost even that secular society con- 
science has obliged him to quit." 

All these counsels, and especially Agnes' exhorta- 
tions to patience, were needed, for Jacqueline's great 
temptation during these years seems to have been to 
restlessness and chafing under her delay. Her enthu- 
siastic temperament and her strong will submitted 
with difficulty to the hard duty of waiting. Probably 
the first great lesson of obedience, so strongly insisted 
on by Angelique in her government, was better learn- 
ed by Jacqueline Pascal in that solitary room in her 
father's house than it could have been amid the con- 
genial activities of Port Royal life. 

Poor child ! The picture of her in these days 
looks dull and colorless enough b,eside the pleasant 



At the Convent Gates. 161 

scenes we have been considering. Madame Perier 
speaks of her " strict solitude, which she never quit- 
ted, unless necessity obliged her." " And to all this/' 
she continues, " she added great bodily austerities. 
As we had but scanty lodging-room (she was then at 
Clermont), a partition had to be put up for her ac- 
commodation in a place where there was no chimney, 
at some distance from the other rooms. There she 
passed a whole winter, without allowing us to do the 
least thing for her comfort, nor would she be per- 
suaded to come near the fire at meal-times, which 
made us all very uneasy. Her abstinence also troub- 
led us ; for though she partook of our ordinary food, 
yet it was in such small portions, that, being natu- 
rally very delicate, she lessened her strength and ruin- 
ed her digestion, till when, at last, we insisted on her 
taking more nourishment, she was unable. Her vigils, 
too, were extraordinary; not that we knew their 
exact length, except as we perceived by the number 
of candles she burned, and by similar circumstances. 
Her admirable foresight led her to prepare for a con- 
ventual dress, which, differing as it does from the 
dress worn generally, troubles the body and so clogs 
the soul ; and to guard against this, she accustomed 
herself as much as possible to its inconveniences. 
Her shoes were made very low in the heel; she wore 
no corsets, cut off her hair, and put on head-dresses 
that were larger and more embarrassing than a veil 
would have been." 



1 62 Sister and Saint. 

It is very probable that if Jacqueline had been, at 
this time, under the direct care of the Mere Angel- 
ique, these practices would have been less rigid, for 
Angtflique did " not approve of austerities and severe 
penance. " She thought they tended to develop 
spiritual pride. We have already quoted her very 
frequent saying, " Perfection does not consist in do- 
ing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things 
extraordinarily well." And the words of St. Francis 
de Sales were often on her lips — that " piety is not 
self-mortification, but doing the will of God ; " and 
that " fasting, in accordance with one's own will, is 
often a temptation of the devil. " 

But Jacqueline Pascal was young and ardent. " She 
loved much/' And doubtless, w T hen she fell at the 
Master's feet and broke there her " alabaster box of 
very precious ointment/' though she may have done 
it mistakenly and blindly, the service was accepted 
and blessed of Him. That it w^as indeed so, seems 
evident from the effect of this life upon her own 
heart. There is no trace of spiritual pride, nor does 
her breaking of home ties and neglect "of home duties 
produce so narrow and selfish a habit of mind as we 
might fear. She was not idle or forgetful of others 
in her solitude. " After regularly reciting her offices/' 
says her sister, " and after reading, which employed 
her closely, as she made extracts from the books she 
read, she spent the rest of her time in working for 



At the Convent Gates. 163 

the poor. She made them thick woolen stockings, 
under-linen, and other small comforts, which, when 
finished, she carried herself to the hospital. It was 
occasion of wonder and edification that this entire 
separation from the world did not make her sour in 
manners and temper, but on the contrary, she was al- 
ways charmingly affable, and ever ready to go out of 
doors on any charitable errand, as we many times on 
trial found. 

" During this time I was often indisposed, and she 
would sit with me all day, without seeming in the 
least disconcerted. Several of my children had vio- 
lent illnesses, and she nursed them with admirable 
kindness. Even when one of my little girls died of 
confluent small-pox, my sister attended her to the 
last, and though the illness continued a fortnight, 
she only went into her own room to repeat her 
offices, choosing for that purpose the child's intervals 
of ease, watching over her night and day with the 
tenderest care, and passing many nights without once 
lying down. When there was no more need of her 
charitable services in this case, she returned to her 

usual course in her chamber Jacqueline took 

great pleasure in visits to poor sick people about the 
town, accompanying an excellent young lady who 
devoted herself entirely to the poor." 

By their fruits ye shall know them ! When vigils, 
fastings, and coarse, uncomfortable garments produce 



164 Sister and Sanif. 

u charming affability," k and tenderness, we 

need not be afraid of them. It is easy to cry out 

against the md the restrictions practiced 

by many Roman Catholic Christians. It is easy 

us t they do. But let us make sure 

that in throwing away these things we are putting 
something better in their place. Let us not omit 
these and also leave the other undone. 

It is a pity to force the fruits of the Spirit by these 
unnatural, painful processes. But it is a greater pity 
still not to cultivate the fruits of the Spirit at all, 
and in our liberty to forget the very object of that 
liberty. 

"The religion of gloom suppresses human nature," 
says Cousin with much force and justice. " But the 
religion of mere pleasure does worse. It degrades 
it." 



•^^^K^ 



WAITING. 



XII. 



WAITING. 



THESE years were stormy ones for the nation, 
and perhaps the vacillations of the Pascals 
between Clermont and Paris may have been 
owing to the unquiet state of things in the capital. 

The new cardinal (Mazarin) was even less popular 
than Richelieu had been. Those who had admired 
that royal maneuverer saw in Mazarin only a feeble 
and unworthy imitator of him. The nobles hated 
him because he was a foreigner, and the people be- 
cause his taxes were extortionate. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that Anne of 
Austria, though nominally Regent, was a cipher in 
the government. She was completely under the in- 
fluence of the cardinal, and it was thought that a 
secret marriage existed between them. 

Meantime Louis Fourteenth was receiving an edu- 
cation which has been thus described : " The infant 

king's amusements were all of a military kind. He 

(167) 



1 68 Sister and Saint, 

delighted in handling arms and in beating drums. 
His intellectual education was neglected, but much 
attention was paid to his physical development, and 
his natural vanity, egotism, and haughtiness were 
encouraged rather than checked by his mother and 
his tutors. The avarice of Cardinal Mazarin induced 
him to stint the allowance and equipage of the young 
monarch, who slept upon worn and ragged sheets 
and had a most unbecoming and insufficient ward- 
robe." 

Certainly this gives little prophecy of his brilliant 
reign — " the Augustan age of France." But we are 
to remember that Louis Fourteenth's reign was bril- 
liant, not from the mind and character of the king, 
btft from those of his gifted subjects. The cruelty, des- 
potism, and fearful grossness of morals during this 
reign, are facts with which everybody is familiar. 
"And yet," say Buckle in his " History of Civiliza- 
tion," "there are still found men who hold up for ad- 
miration the age of Louis Fourteenth. They are 
willing to forgive every injury inflicted by a prince 
during whose life there were produced the letters of 
Pascal, the orations of Bossuet, the comedies of 
Moliere, and the tragedies of Racine." 

This is wandering a little from Cardinal Mazarin, 
but we will come back to say that, one day in 1648 — 
that summer after M. Pascal had joined Blaise and 
Jacqueline in the city — Paris awaked to find itself in 



Waiting. 169 

the hands of the mob. The cardinal had caused the 
arrest of two men who had resisted the taxes, and 
this was the result. The Swiss guards, stationed at 
the Tuilleries, were dispersed, barricades were erected 
in all the streets adjoining the palace, and the court, 
thus hemned in and defenseless, was obliged to repeal 
for the moment the obnoxious taxes. 

This was the beginning of " the wars of the Fronde," 
so called from the epithet frondeurs (slingers) applied 
to the insurgents. 

These wars soon became a mere series of intrigues 
between the nobility and the cardinal, and are far too 
intricate for us to follow. It is worth our while, 
however, to notice that that beautiful and accom- 
plished woman, the Duchess of Longueville, at first 
took the lead of the party opposed to the court and 
cardinal, and thus placed herself in opposition to her 
brother, the great Prince Conde. A few years later 
she became a very different woman, and gladly left 
the tumult of the world for the cloisters of Port 
Royal. 

During all the remaining years with which our little 
history has to do, these commotions or others similar 
to them were raging. 

Paris was besieged by Conde in 1649, and all the 
surrounding country was involved in the distress of 
the city. The Mere Angelique writes from Port 
Royal des Champs : " We are all occupied in contriv- 



170 Sister and Saint. 

ing soups and pottage for the poor. This is, indeed, 
an awful time. Our gentlemen, as they were taking 
their rounds yesterday, found two persons starved to 
death, and met with a young woman on the very 
point of killing her child because she had no food for it. 

"All is pillaged around ; corn-fields are trampled 
over by the cavalry in presence of the starving own- 
ers ; despair has seized all whose confidence is not in 
God ; no one will any longer plow or dig ; there 
are no horses left, indeed, for plowing, nor, if there 
were, is any person certain of reaping what he sows ; 
everything is stolen. 

" Perhaps I shall not be able to send you a letter 
to-morrow, for all our horses and asses are dead with 
hunger. Oh, how little do princes know of the de- 
tailed horrors of war ! All the provender of the 
beasts we were obliged to divide between the starving 
poor and ourselves. We have concealed, in our con- 
vent, as many of the peasants and their cattle as we 
could, to save them from being murdered and losing 
all their substance. Our dormitory and the chapter- 
house are full of horses. We are almost stifled from 
being pent up with these beasts. But we could not re- 
sist the piercing lamentations of the starving and 
heart-broken people. In the cellar are concealed 
forty cows. Our court-yards and outhouses are packed 
full of fowls, turkeys, ducks, geese, and asses. The 
church is piled up to the ceiling with corn, oats, beans, 



Waiting. 171 

and pease, and with caldrons, kettles, and other things 
belonging to the cottagers. Every time we enter the 
chapel we are obliged to scramble over sacks of flour 
and all sorts of rubbish. The floor of the choir is com- 
pletely covered with the libraries of our gentlemen. 

" Thirty or forty nuns, from other convents, Lave 
also fled here for refuge. Our laundry is thronged 
by the aged, the blind, the maimed, the halt, and in- 
fants. The infirmary is full of sick and wounded. 
We have torn up all our linen clothes, and used all 
our rags, to dress their sores. We have no more, and 
are now at our wits' end. The cold is excessive, and 
all our fire-wood is consumed. We dare not go into 
the fields for any more, for they are full of marauding 
parties. We hear that the Abbey of St. Cyran has 
been burnt and pillaged. Our own is threatened with 
an attack every day. The cold weather alone pre- 
serves us from pestilence. We are so closely crowded 
that deaths take place continually. God, however, is 
with us, and we are in peace. I did not intend to tell 
you all this, but my heart is so full that I have written 
on without knowing it." 

While she waited for the fulfillment of her vows and 
of her hopes, Jacqueline Pascal's mind was not stag- 
nating, nor was her pen altogether idle, though she 
appears to have spent more time in copying and 
paraphrasing the writings of others than in original 
composition. 



172 Sister and Saint. 

Of course the character of her productions is very 
different from that of earlier days. Her thoughts 
were deeper, higher, and undoubtedly the excellent 
models she so faithfully studied had their natural ef- 
fect on her style, so that we find in her compositions 
after this time a certain elevation and dignity added 
to the gracefulness of her youth. " Her prose," says 
Cousin, " is always of the best quality, healthy, natural, 
ingenious, agreeable." Some of her " reflections " 
were considered so fine that it was once proposed to 
incorporate them with an edition of her brother's 
" Pensees," but this plan was given up, and they were 
added to the " Conferences of the Rev. Mere Marie 
Angelique Arnauld." 

Jacqueline Pascal never attained the keen, clear 
thought and transparent style of her brother, but she 
belongs, as some one has said, to the noble order of the 
"sisters of genius," capable of appreciating the high- 
est and best in another, and by her enthusiasm and 
her nobility of character, of inspiring that other to his 
greatest successes. Such a power is to most women 
a more useful and a more welcome gift than genius 
itself. 

There are three papers written by Jacqueline, be- 
tween the years 1648 and 1652, which are worth our 
attention. The first in time is a letter to her father, 
written soon after his refusal to her request, and be- 
fore she had entered upon the strictly solitary life her 



Waiting. i j 3 

sister has described to us. It is very long, taking up 
seven pages of Cousin's volume, and we can make 
but a few extracts from it. Her object in writing is 
to beg her father's permission to make a " retreat " of 
a fortnight at Port Royal, and very skillfully she 
makes her plea. She begins thus : 

" MONSIEUR MON PerE: — As ingratitude is the 
blackest of vices, all that approaches it is so horrible 
that it can scarcely be thought of by one who has any 
love whatever for virtue. Forgetfulness of benefits 
received from another, above all when those benefits 
have been great and long continued, is ordinarily an 
effect of ingratitude, and want of confidence in this 
same person must be the effect of this forgetfulness. 
Therefore, I should believe it to be a crime to fail to 
have great confidence in you on this occasion, although, 
at the same time, I very much wish what I ask, and, 
ordinarily, those who wish fear also. 

" First of all, I beg you, my father, not to be sur- 
prised at this request of mine, for it does not militate 
in the least against your will in regard to me as you 
have testified it. I also beg you, by all that is most 
holy, to remember the prompt obedience I have ren- 
dered you in that thing which touches me nearest of 
anything in the world, and the accomplishment of 
which I wish so ardently. Doubtless you have not 
forgotten this exact submission. You appeared too 
well satisfied with it to let it so soon pass out of your 



i 74 Sister and Saint. 

mind. God is my witness that I believe I have done 
my duty in acting thus, and I only remind you of it 
that you may understand that all my principles lead 
me to undertake nothing important without your 
consent. After that, my father, I have no more 
doubt that you will do me the honor to believe me 
and to grant my request.'' 

And now she fears she has gone too far and injured 
her cause by making too much of it. She changes 
her tactics : 

"After all this preparation you will think it is some 
great request. It really is not that at all ; indeed, it 
is so little that I believe I might have done it without 
offending you in the least, if I had said nothing about 
it!" ... . 

" Know then, my father, if you please (and, indeed, 
I think you already are aware of the fact), that it is 
a frequent thing among persons of all conditions, 
whether living in the world or not, to make at certain 
times, as their spiritual director may advise, two or 
three weeks of retreat in some religious house, where 
they enter into perfect seclusion, by permission of the 
superior, and hold converse only with God and those 
who are His. Those who are most careful of their 
salvation place themselves when they can in the best 
regulated house they know of. I think you see my 
design, and I am sure you think with me that I can 
not do better than choose Port Royal de Paris, nor 



Waiting. 1 75 

take a better time than that of your absence when I 
can render you no service. Neither am I needed by 
any one else in the house, for since you went away I 
have not written a single word for my brother, and 
that is the thing for which he needs me most. But 
he can do very well with some one else ; indeed, I 
see no way in which I can possibly be needed until 
your return from Rouen, certainly if you compare 
such usefulness with the necessity which there is for 
my making this retreat." 

And then, presently, she thinks of another good 
argument to urge : " For since God has shown me 
the grace to increase daily within me the effect of 
that vocation He has pleased to give me, and you 
have permitted me to keep, and which it is my de- 
sire to accomplish as soon as He shall make known to 
me His will by yours — since, I say, this desire aug- 
ments every day, and I see no power on earth that 
can prevent my accomplishing it if you will and per- 
mit it — this retreat would serve to prove whether it is 
there that God would have me. I could then listen to 
Him alone (seul a seul), and perhaps I shall find that 
I am not born for that sort of place ; and, if it is thus, 
I will ask you frankly not to think of it any longer, 
or pay any more attention to what I have said to 
you 

" Behold, M. mon pere, the very humble prayer I 
make you. I doubt not you will grant it If I 



I 76 Sister and Sai?it. 

have ever been so happy as to satisfy you in anything, 
I beg you grant me promptly what I ask. The ab- 
besses, on their part, have accorded me the privilege. 
M. Perier, my brother, and ma fidele (Gilberte), ap- 
prove my plan and are quite willing, provided I can 
gain your consent 

" If there were any other consideration stronger 
than the love of God, which will urge you for His 
sake to accord me this slight request, I would employ 
it. In the name of that sacred love which He gives 
to us, and which we owe to Him, grant this request, 
eitlier to my zveakness or to my arguments 

" You may be certain that your commandments are 
laws to me, and that where your satisfaction is con- 
cerned, even at the prejudice of my whole life's re- 
pose, I promptly hasten to obey. It is gratitude and 
affection rather than duty that leads me to do this, 
and when I accord to you what you demand of me, it 
is from pure love to your service next to that of God. 
This service is the reason you have given for keeping 
me with you. I hope in God you will some day 
know how much better I could serve you by being 
with Him than by being with you. But while wait- 
ing for this time, I pray Him to keep me in the same 
sentiments I have always had, to await patiently your 
will after I have sought to discover His. 

" On the subject of my little retreat I await your 
answer with impatience such as you can imagine, but 



Waiting. 177 

with entire submission, although I have the greatest 
desire for it. Whatever your answer may be, it will 
not in the least change the passion it will find in me 
— a passion which will never leave me — of proving to 
you how much more I am by the affection of the 
heart than by the necessity of nature, M. my father, 
your very humble and very obedient daughter and 
servant, Jacqueline Pascal. 

" M. Perier, my brother, and ma fidele, humbly kiss 
your hands." 

A better specimen of a woman's logic — compounded 
of tenderness, obedience, defiance, pleading, argu- 
ment, and religion — it would be difficult to find. It 
is easy to recognize in the writer the little girl who 
sat on Richelieu's knee, and through tears and ca- 
resses, backed by genuine determination and a fine 
talent for sticking closely to the point, obtained her 
father's pardon. 

We are not told whether this letter brought the 
desired permission, but it certainly deserved to do so. 

While Jacqueline was at Clermont, living in the 

little cold room partitioned off for her, making " coats 

and garments " and taking them to the hospital, she 

became acquainted with a certain good Father of the 

Oratory, who seems to have been much interested in 

the earnest young disciple. Madame Perier says : 

" The good man often came to see my sister, and 
8* 



1 7 S Sister a?id Saint. 

his edifying conversation gave her pleasure. He one 
day said to her that, since her talents had formerly 
been employed on worldly themes, it was but reason- 
able that she should now use them in some attempt 
at honoring God ; that he had heard of her as writing 
poetry, and had thought of furnishing her with an 
opportunity of thus glorifying God by translating for 
her some of the Church hymns from Latin into 
French prose, which she might afterward versify. 
She replied promptly that she was quite willing. He 
brought her first the Ascension hymn, Jesu, nostra 
redemptio, which is chanted every day at the Ora- 
tory, and she put it into rhyme." 

This hymn is supposed to have been written by St. 
Ambrose in the year 390. It is given us in some of 
our church collections as follows : 

" O Christ ! our Hope, our heart's desire, 
Redemption's only spring ; 
Creator of the world art Thou, 
Its Saviour and its King. 

" How vast the mercy and the love 
Which laid our sins on Thee ; 
And led Thee to a cruel death 
To set Thy people free ! 

" But now the bonds of death are burst, 
The ransom has been paid ; 
And Thou art on Thy Father's throne, 
In glorious robes arrayed. 

" O Christ ! be Thou our present joy, 
Our future great Reward ! 



Waiting. 1 79 

Our only glory may it be 
To glory in the Lord ! " 

It may be interesting to some readers to see it in 
Jacqueline Pascal's French version : 

" J6sus, digue ran^on de l'homrae rachet6, 

Amour de notre coeur et desir de notre &me, 
Seul Createur de tout, Dieu dans Feternite, 

Homme & la fin des temps naissant d'une femme. 

" Quel exc&s de clemence a su ta surmonter, 

Que, portant les pecMs de son peuple rebelle, 
Tu souftris une mort horrible si reconter, 
Pour garantir les tiens de la mort eternelle ? 

" Que la meme bont6 t' oblige maintenant, 

A surmonter les maux dont ton peuple est coupable ; 
Remplis ses justes voeux en les lui pardonnant, 
Et qu'il jouisse en paix de tu vue ineffable. 

" Sois notre unique joie, O J6sus, notre Roi, 

Qui seras pour toujours notre unique salaire ; 
Que toute notre gloire & jamais soit on toi, 
Dans le jour 6ternel ou ta splendeur eclaire ! " 

" The good father thought this so fine," continues 
Madame Perier, a that he urged her to proceed, but 
her scruples were aroused by the reflection that she 
had undertaken the work without due consultation. " 

She wrote to Port Royal to ask advice, and re- 
ceived an answer, Sainte-Beuve says from Agnes, 
Cousin says from Angelique, and where such doctors 
disagree we would not undertake to settle the point. 



I So Sister and Saint. 

At any rate, the letter probably expresses the opin- 
ions of both sisters on the subject, and they had forti- 
fied their own by that of M. Singlin. " I have ob- 
tained M. Singlin's opinion on the questions you ask," 
the letter runs. " To the first " (which seems to have 
been an inquiry into the propriety of some employ- 
ment), " he says that nuns must not work for vanity, 
and it would be better for you to work on it a little 
at a time by way of occupation. As to the second, it 
is better for you to hide your talents of that nature, 
instead of making them known. God will not re- 
quire an account of them, and they must be buried, for 
the lot of women is humility and silence." 

Again, " I am glad that you have yourself antici- 
pated this decision. You ouglit to liate your genius, 
and all the other traits in your character which, per- 
haps, cause the world to retain you, for w T here it has 
sown it would fain gather the harvest. Our Saviour 
will do the same in His own good time. He will call 
for the fruit of that divine seed which He has set in 
your heart, and which, with patience, will become 
abundantly multiplied. This is all He now asks 
of us." 

" When Jacqueline received this letter," says her 
sister, " she showed it to me, and, without giving any 
reason, begged the good father to excuse her from 
proceeding farther." This was, then, with one nota- 
ble exception, Jacqueline Pascal's last poetic effort. 



Waiting. 181 

The third noteworthy production of her pen during 
these years was a series of fifty-one " pensees edinan- 
tes" on the mystery of the death of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

It was the custom at Port Royal to decide by lot 
every month on a motto, or subject of meditation, 
for each member of the sisterhood. The Mere Agnes 
often included Jacqueline in this drawing of lots, and 
in May, 165 1, she sent her the subject given above 
with this kind little note : " I have drawn for you the 
Mystery of Jesus Chrises Death, and the same subject 
has also fallen to my lot. I have thereby been led 
to think that .... none of those holy desires, emo- 
tions, and actions which God inspires in us can reach 
their full perfection, nor aid us in the attainment of 
Christian holiness, until our self-will is entirely dead 
and happily swallowed up in God's will. When this 
is done, we can not fail of experiencing that resurrec- 
tion which gives eternal life. Let us therefore try, 
my dear sister, to realize that it is the privilege of our 
heavenly calling to die daily, and let us not shrink 
from crucifying our own inclinations, if we may there- 
by honor Him whose death has procured for us eter- 
nal life." 

These reflections of Jacqueline Pascal's on the death 
of Christ would be rather heavy reading, to say noth- 
ing of writing, for most young ladies of the present 
day, however religiously inclined. We are to notice 



1S2 Sister and Saint. 

that they are thoughts — not feelings — and that each 
one has a practical bearing. If any girl will make the 
experiment of writing out fifty-one distinct thoughts 
on any one single fact, she will get an impression of 
the quality of Jacqueline Pascal's mind. 

We give a few extracts, choosing them on the prin- 
ciple of brevity chiefly : 



III. 

Jesus died in reality, and not figuratively, or in de- 
sire only. 

This teaches me that I ought to die to the world 
effectively, and not to be content with imaginations 
and beautiful speculations about it. 



IV. 

The death of Jesus has nothing extraordinary about 
it ; that is to say, His body was deprived of life, as 
all other bodies are, and death took possession of Him 
in the posture and in the manner natural to that 
condition. 

This teaches me that although I ought to destroy 
within me the flesh and all its desires, there should 
nevertheless be nothing extraordinary nor singular in 
my actions ; but I should do simply those things 
which are suitable to my present condition. 



Waiting. 183 

VIII. 

Jesus did not wait to die of old age, but antici- 
pated death in the strength of His youth. 

This teaches me not to wait till the decadence of 
my life before dying to the world, but to anticipate 
the actual by the mystic death. 

X. 

Jesus died on the cross, raised above all the world, 
having everything under His feet, even His blessed 
mother. 

I learn from this that my heart should be above all 
the things of this world, and that by this elevation of 
spirit, which is not proud, but heavenly, I should re- 
gard as beneath me everything, even that which is 
most grand and most amiable. 

XV. 

Jesus died publicly, before the eyes of all who chose 
to gaze. 

I learn from this that although my condition may 
expose me to the eyes of the world, nevertheless I 
should die to it. 

XXVIII. 

I see Jesus dead in three different places : on the 
cross in view of the whole world ; descended from the 



184 Sister and Saint. 



cross in the midst of His friends; and in the tomb in 
entire solitude ; and in these three places He is equally 
dead. 

This teaches me that in whatever state I may find 
myself, in conversation or in solitude, I should equally 
be dead to the world. 

XXX. 

Jesus was clothed after His death with the garments 
suitable to the dead. 

I learn from this to show by my dress that I am 
dead to the world. 

XXXII. 

Even the cloth in which the body of Jesus was 
wrapped did not belong to Him. 

I learn from this not to be attached to the things 
which are about me, even those which are most useful. 

XLVII. 

Jesus did not enter triumphant into heaven as soon 
as He died to the earth, but He waited patiently sev- 
eral days. 

This teaches me to suffer in patience the privation 
of celestial consolations. 



Waiting. 185 

XLVIII. 

Jesus died, but in dying He did not leave His own 
comfortless. He sent to them His Holy Spirit, 
which is His Divine Love, to dwell with them 
(though invisible), even to the end of the world. 

I learn from this that in whatever manner I may 
be separated from my own, I ought, nevertheless, 
always to dwell with them by an affection which is 
born of God, and always assist them with my prayers. 

L. 

It was by the death of the natural body of Jesus 
that He gave life to His mystical body, which is the 
Church. 

This teaches me that my death to the world should 
be the principle of my life in God. 



THE LORD OPENS THE WAY. 



XIIL 



THE LORD OPENS THE WAY. 



THUS the months and the years had passed 
away till September, 165 1. "At that time," 
says Madame Perier, "my father was seized 
with the illness of which he died, and my sister de- 
voted herself to attendance upon him by day and 
night, with the utmost zeal and assiduity. She may 
be said to have done nothing else, for when her 
presence was not needed in his room, she withdrew 
to her own apartment, where, as she herself told me, 
ske prostrated herself and prayed for him incessantly 
with tears. But God, notwithstanding, did accord- 
ing to His own will, and my father died, September 
24th. We were at once informed of it (being then at 
Clermont), but my state of health prevented us from 
reaching Paris before the last of November." This 
was the time when, as we may remember, Madame 
Perier " preferred to incur the expense and trouble " 

of taking her little girls with her rather than run the 

(189) 



190 Sister and Saint. 

risk of possible ribbons and laces bestowed by their 
indulgent grandmother. 

While Blaise and Jacqueline waited together these 
few weeks in the house of mourning, there seems to 
have been a renewal of the old, beautiful, tender in- 
timacy between them. 

" My brother was much comforted in his deep afflic- 
tion by her society," says Madame Perier. And, 
doubtless, Jacqueline was as much comforted by her 
brother. Notwithstanding the opposition of her 
opinion to that of her father, her love for him was 
deep and her mourning most sincere. Touched by a 
common sorrow, the hearts of brother and sister crept 
naturally close together. Once more Jacqueline be 
comes her brother's scribe, and they write together t 
long, beautiful letter of mingled grief and consolation 
to their sister. 

" Let us view death," they say, " in Jesus Christ, 

and not without Him In Christ all things are 

pleasant, and work together for our good. Death is 
no exception. Christ suffered and died that He 
might sanctify death and sorrow. 

" It is not right for us to be without grief, even as 
the angels who are unconscious of sorrow. Neither 
ought we to refuse comfort, as do the heathen in 

their ignorance of grace It is our duty to let 

the comforts of grace overcome natural sorrow, and to 
say with the apostle, ' Being afflicted, we give thanks.' 



The Lord Opens the Way. 191 

" A holy man once told me that one of the most 
advantageous ways of showing our love for departed 
friends is to do as they would advise us, were they 
still living, to follow their counsels, and to endeavor 
to attain that state of holiness in which they would 
delight to see us." 

And then Blaise cries out in his own name (though 
the handwriting throughout the letter is Jacqueline's), 
" His loss is greater to me than to the others. Had 
I lost him six years ago I had been ruined, and 
though my need of him is not quite so absolute at 
the present time, it seems as if he were necessary to 
me for the next ten years, and his presence would 
have been useful through my whole life." 

Undoubtedly, during the three years just past, 
father and son had been much thrown upon each 
other for companionship, and the separation was the 
more keenly felt on that account. Perhaps, also, 
there was another reason for his feeling the need of a 
father's restraining and inspiring presence. 

As we have seen, his path and Jacqueline's have 
been all this time diverging. Not only was he not 
ready to follow her up to her cold, calm heights, but 
his feet had, actually, for a time, turned in another 
(and in Jacqueline's austere judgment), an opposite 
direction. 

That he had not lost his faith is abundantly 
proved by the letter from which we have quoted. 



192 Sister and Saint. 

But cut off from all study, either secular or religious; 
deprived of the old home enjoyments by the absence 
of one sister and the still greater inaccessibility of the 
present one ; denied, both by ill-health and by his 
easy circumstances, the invigorating effect of manual 
labor, it would have been a marvel if the young man's 
life had not acquired a taint of aimlessness. At first, 
when the physicians had ordered him to " abandon 
every sort of mental occupation, and seek, as much as 
he could, opportunities of amusing himself/' he was 
very reluctant to take their advice, " because " (keen, 
clear, honest logician that he was !) " he saw its danger '." 

"At length, however, he yielded, thinking it his 
duty to do all he could to restore his health, and 
believing that trivial amusements could not harm 
him." And so, to use the severe expression of Jan- 
senism, Pascal had " set himself on the world." 

Margaret Perier, his niece, relieves the picture by 
a few slight details : 

" In consequence of my uncle's miserable state of 
health," she says, " the physicians had to interdict all 
mental effort ; but a disposition so lively and energetic 
as his could not long remain idle. When he was no 
longer busied in scientific pursuits, or in religious 
studies requiring close application, he felt the need of 
amusement, and this drove him into company where 
he played cards and joined in other diversions. At 
first he did so in moderation ; but by degrees his 



The Lord Opens the Way. 193 

taste for society increased, and though his life was 
never in the least vicious or irregular, it gradually be- 
came gay, frivolous, and useless At length he 

made up his mind to follow the common routine, 
purchase some office, and marry." 

And this is the worst that, in all the Port Royal 
and the family annals, can be found set down against 
those few deeply-regretted years. 

But now his father's death recalls Blaise Pascal from 
whatever worldly pleasures he may have been enjoy- 
ing, and the loss of that father's affectionate presence 
throws him back upon his sisters for the love he so 
much needs both to give and to receive. 

How beautifully the strong, natural affection blazes 
up at this opportunity — that affection so soon to be 
resolutely smothered, though never extinguished ! 
" May God continue in my heart," he says, "that 
love for you and my sister which seems to me greater 
at this moment than it ever was before. I feel as if 
the love we used to lavish on my father ought not to 
be lost, but to be gathered up and concentrated on each 
other. The legacy of love he left us should be in- 
vested in a deeper fraternal affection, if that were 
possible." 

With such feelings in his heart, with Jacqueline by 

his side, writing for him and ministering to him in 

her old sisterly way, it is not strange that he should 

have been "much comforted," nor that he should 

9 



194 Sister and Saint. 

have " imagined that kindness would induce her to 
stay with him at least a year, to help him in recover- 
ing- from this great calamity." 

But Jacqueline's purpose was exactly what it had 
been for three years. The Lord had now removed 
the only obstacle in the way of her fulfilling it. There 
was, then, in her view, but one thing for her to do. 
She would take the portion of goods that fell to her 
and go to Port Royal. Till her sister could come, 
and the property could be divided, she would stay 
with her brother. And while she stayed she would 
be his loving, sympathizing, and tender sister. She 
would not add to his grief if it were possible to help 
it. She would make the wrench as gentle as possi- 
ble. " She concealed her intentions till we arrived," 
says her sister. " She then told me that she meant 
to take the veil as soon as the estate was divided, and 
that she should spare my brother's feelings by letting 
him suppose she was only going to make a retreat at 
Port Royal." 

A month passed after Madame Perier's arrival at 
Paris before the estate was settled. During this time 
Jacqueline " disposed of everything" in preparation 
for retirement from the world. On the last day of 
December the division of property was made, and 
the last papers signed. Jacqueline had a part of her 
own share transferred to her brother, but she kept a 
considerable sum — her dowry for her " divine be- 
trothal " — about which more hereafter. 



The Lord Opens the Way. 195 

Three days after the settlement she left her home 
forever. This is her sister's simple story : 

" On the evening before, she begged me to say 
something to my brother, that he might not be taken 
by surprise. I did so, with all the precaution I 
could ; but though I hinted something about i a re- 
treat/ he did not fail to be deeply moved. He with- 
drew very sad to his own chamber, without seeing 
my sister, who was then in a small cabinet where she 
was accustomed to retire for prayer. She did not 
come out till my brother had left, ^^ she feared his 
look would go to her heart. 

" I told her for him what words of tenderness he 
had spoken, and after that we both retired. Though 
I consented with all my heart to what my sister was 
doing, because I thought it was for her highest good, 
the greatness of her resolution astonished and occu- 
pied my mind so much that I could not sleep all 
night. 

" At seven o'clock the next morning, when I saw 
that my sister was not up, I concluded that she was 
no longer sleeping, and feared she might be ill. 
Accordingly, I went to her bed, where I found her 
still fast asleep. The noise I made awoke her ; she 
asked me what time it was. I told her ; and having 
inquired how she was and if she had slept well, she 
said she was very well and had slept excellently. 

" So she rose, dressed, and went away, doing this, as 



196 Sister and Saint. 

everything else, with a tranquillity and equanimity 
inconceivable. 

M We said no adien for fear of breaking down. I 
only turned aside when I saw her ready to go. 

" In this manner she quitted the world on the 4th 
of January, 1652, being then exactly twenty-six years 
and three months old.'* 

Thus ends Madame Perier's sketch of the sister's 
life, from which we have quoted so often. 

How touching in their simplicity are these last 
words ! How full of suppressed, unselfish love ! 

"What a picture," says Principal Tulloch, "does 
this extract give us of this remarkable family ! — the 
elder sister's wakeful anxiety — the younger's calm 
determination — the brother's half-suppressed yet 
deeply-moved tenderness — the proud and sensitive 
reserve of all the three ! " 

To our mind, the elder sister, acting as medium 
between Blaise and Jacqueline, who dared not trust 
themselves to meet — quite forgetting herself in 
tender concern for each of them — shielding and 
soothing the wounded brother, yet rising to full 
sympathy with Jacqueline in her high resolve — al- 
ways unselfish, always " la fidele" forms the noblest 
figure of the group. Yet there is dignity in the 
silent Blaise, sitting " very sad," but unremonstrating, 
uncomplaining in his chamber. And there is a won- 
derful calm brightness about the noble girl sleeping 



The Lord Opens the Way. 197 



" excellently " on the eve of so great and solemn a 
change. Was this from want of love and tenderness ? 
Gilberte knew better than that ! " She feared his look 
would go to her heart." "We said no adieu for fear 
of breaking down." 

Port Royal opened joyous gates to the dear sister 
who had so long waited for admittance. Jacqueline 
was assigned at first to the Paris house, and entered 
at once upon the active duties of the convent as pos- 
tulant or candidate. 

It was, undoubtedly, a pleasant and a healthful 
change from the life, of solitude and introversion she 
had been leading. At the same time there were in- 
conveniences and hardships attendant on convent 
life which might have severely shocked the delicate, 
high-bred girl had she not wisely made some prepa- 
ration for them. The abbesses Angelique and Agnes 
allowed no luxuries to themselves or to their nuns, 
except the luxury of charity. The utmost poverty 
and bareness prevailed throughout the whole build- 
ing, and the nuns' cells — the only thing in the world 
which they could call their own — were no exception 
to the rule. The story is told of one of the Arnaulds, 
that, on going to her cell for the first time, at night, 
she covered the one bare little table with a white 
cloth and made such few simple preparations for her 
toilet as circumstances admitted. The abbess — her own 
sister Angelique — noticed it in her nightly round, and 



19S Sister and Saint. 

u laughed in her heart." However, she said nothing that 
night, but the next day the simple little appointments 
— cloth and all — were removed. When the young sister 
came to her cell the second night and found it bare 
again, she thought there had been some mistake and 
again spread a clean white handkerchief over the table. 
But once more it was removed, and so it went on till 
she had thoroughly learned the lesson and cheerfully 
submitted to it. It was a part of the great lesson of 
" the mystery of the poverty of Christ/' 

Jacqueline Pascal had been humbly trying to learn 
that lesson in her own cheerless chamber at home, 
and probably she found little difficulty in suiting her- 
self to a new lack of comforts. Her dress, too — the 
ugly and harassing combination described by Gil- 
berte — must have been willingly exchanged for the 
novice's costume — a " loose, gray robe, cut on the 
cross, fastened round the throat and hanging to the 
feet." The beauty of this dress, according to Angel- 
ique, was that " all kinds of work could be done in 
it," and all kinds of work were done by candidates, 
novices, and sisters of all degrees, from cleaning the 
hen-house and scouring the saucepans to the most 
exquisite darning and the reverent care of the altar 
furniture. 

u We used to go into the kitchen by turns for a 
week together," says Anne Arnauld. " We liked hard 
work of all kinds, and I was particularly fond of 



The Lord Opens the Way. 199 

sweeping the floors, remembering that St. Theresa 
took great pleasure in it. In the summer mornings 
we used to go into the garden and dig in silence with 
great zeal. We rose at two to say matins and did not 
go to bed again after that time. In winter the church 
was very cold, but no one complained of it, and our 
clothing was not much warmer in winter than it was 
in summer." 

The " Constitutions of Port Royal," drawn up by 
the Mere Agnes, give us a similar view of humility 
and activity. " The novices," says this authority, 
" are not to be fed with milk and honey, by being 
humored and treated gently, but with the strong 

meat of self-denial and humiliations Industry 

is a positive duty, each sister being expected to 
perform a certain amount of work daily, the more 
humiliating the better, and to love her task, because 
the Saviour stooped to practice a lowly trade, and so 
did His apostles. They make their own habits and 
shoes, as well as linen, wafers, and wax candles. Book- 
binding is also one of our occupations, and we make 
lanterns, candlesticks, and other useful articles of tin." 
.... (Embroideries and artificial flowers were never 
introduced at Port Royal). " When at work, the 

sisters are to be silent and meditative Strict 

silence is enjoined for some hours of each day, except 
in case of absolute necessity, and even then the use 
of signs is recommended Those possessing 



200 Sister and Saint. 

good voices are carefully trained to sing in the choir, 
under the direction of a leader, who must strain every 
nerve to prevent the possibility of a mistake or fail- 
ure in the worship of the sanctuary; yet the leader is 
not to assume undue authority, ox permit her voice to 
be heard above the others ! " 

One of the sweetest duties of the convent to Jac- 
queline was, doubtless, what was called "the perpetual 
adoration of the Holy Sacrament." This expression 
is a little startling to Protestant ears, but it only signi- 
fied " that every nun was to spend a portion of each 
day in silent prayer before the altar, and to wait there 
till relieved by one of her companions." They had 
no set form of prayer for the occasion, but were to 
invoke the special aid of the Holy Spirit to bring 
their wishes into accordance with God's will, "and 
not dwelling on their own personal wants or sins, were 
to forget self" and plead earnestly for the good of 
the Church universal and the extension of Christ s 
kingdom. They were taught to hope that by thus 
trying to imitate the blessed ones who " rest not day 
nor night " in their worship, and " expelling as far as 
possible all earthly interests from the heart, Christ 
would fill it with the precious balm of His grace, 
and perfume their poor prayers with the incense of 
His own merits. The remembrance of this hallowed 
hour was also to accompany them through the rest 
of the day. Their motto was to be, c I sleep, but my 




The Lord Opens the Way. 201 

heart worketh/ meaning that no occupation ought to 
distract their minds from continued prayer and com- 
munion with Jesus." 

Of course, in addition to this daily worship in the 
church, and fixed hours for each one in her own cell, 
the sisterhood observed the ordinary Church routine 
of fasts and festivals. The Bible was, moreover, daily 
read aloud — not a common custom in a convent at 
that time, if it is at present. The nuns were urged 
to learn portions of it by heart. " Let them try to 
fill the treasury of their minds with God's word/' say 
the Constitutions. " It is more desirable than gold 
or precious stones." 

One hour of every day was allowed the sisters " in 
which to make confession of losses, accidents, or 
slight failures in duty." There was another " hour of 
conference," in summer, spent in the garden, where 
each one was permitted to speak freely, "provided 
she did so with discretion and grave politeness, as 
well as care not to interrupt others, or put herself un- 
duly forward." 

Such was the daily course of Jacqueline Pascal's 
life during these first months at Port Royal. We are 
obliged to learn of it from the convent rules and not 
from herself, for at first she wrote very little, even to 
her faithful Gilberte. Indeed, the " Constitutions " 
require that letters should be rarely written. They 
were never sent without inspection, nor were they 

9* 



202 Sister and Saint. 

ever to be very affectionate. " The best way of ex- 
pressing love is in prayer for its object. " 

Without doubt, Jacqueline was happy. But one 
great burden lay on her heart — one great longing 
took possession of her soul. It was the longing for 
her brother's full sympathy. As the time drew near 
for her to take the veil the burden weighed heavier, 
the longing grew more intense. Her few letters at 
this time are grave and repressed. It is not till later, 
when actual trial and persecution are staring her in 
the face, but when her heart is lightened of this great 
weight, that we catch once more an occasional gleam 
of her youthful playfulness. 



FRESH TRIALS, 



XIV. 

FRESH TRIALS. 

THE usual period of probation at Port Royal 
was a year, but Jacqueline had in effect 
been on probation before she entered the 
convent, and, in her case, the time was shortened to 
four months. 

It was arranged that she should take the veil as a 
novice in May. And looking forward to that joyful 
occasion, there is but one thing lacking to render her 
happiness complete. 

Early in March she wrote a long letter to her 
brother — a letter as remarkable as the one she wrote 
her father when begging for a " retreat" at Port 
Royal. 

"This letter reveals," says Cousin, "both the 
woman and the saint, the mingled passion and ob- 
stinacy which distinguish the whole family, and withal 
a charming sweetness — a blending of humble entreat- 
ies with the accent of command." She signs herself 

(205) 



?o6 Sister and Saint. 



already " sceur de Sainte-Euphemie," the " new 
name" which she is to receive on the day of the 
coming ceremony. (Strange that while cutting them- 
selves away from all natural relationships, and break- 
ing the most sacred bonds, these monks and nuns 
must yet borrow the names of human ties to express 
their ideal of their place in God's world ! Father — 
mother — brother — sister — they can find no more sa- 
cred titles by which to show what they believe to be 
the highest and holiest estate for man or woman !) 

Through the greater part of this letter Jacqueline 
addresses her brother with the grave and formal 
" you," but now and then she forgets herself and re- 
lapses into the old familiar "thou." She begs him 
by all their former intimacy to give her " his kindly 
greeting" in this solemn act, and yet she reminds 
him that she is now her own mistress, and can do as 
she pleases without his consent ! In short, the whole 
eight pages are just as illogical, just as affectionate, 
just as proud, as noble, and as thoroughly feminine 
as was that long letter to her father three years be- 
fore. 

See how skillfully she touches upon every motive 
which can possibly have weight in her brother's 
mind : 

" Do you remember the time," she says, " when I 
loved the world, and when my knowledge and love of 
God increased my guilt, because my heart was so un- 



Fresh Trials, 207 

equally divided between two masters? Do you re- 
member that it was yozi who first tried to convince me 
that I could not unite two things so opposed as the 
spirit of religion and the spirit of the world ?" 

" You ought, in some measure, to judge of my affec- 
tion by your own, and to consider that, even if I am 
strong enough to persevere, despite your resistance, I 
may not be able to bear up against the grief it will 
cause me." As if she would say, " I am human still, 
though you may not believe it ; I have a heart and you 
can make it ache." 

" You have the power of troubling my peace," she 
goes on, " but you can not restore it if, through your 
fault, I should once lose it. Do not take that away 
which you can not give." 

" Do not hinder those who do well ; and do well 
yourself ; at least, if you have not the strength to fol- 
low me, do not hold me back." 

" How strange that you should have such scruples ! 
You would not try to prevent my marrying a prince, 
nor think, if I did so, it were not my duty to follow 
him, even to a place very far removed from you." 

"I await this proof of your affection," she con- 
cludes (his presence at the ceremony). ..." Of course 
my invitation is a mere form, for / do not imagine you 
would dream of staying away / .... I have written 
to my sister. I ask you to console her, if necessary, 
and to encourage her. I tell her that if she wishes to 



208 Sister and Saint. 

come, it will delight me to see her, but that if she 
comes in the hope of making me change my mind, 
her pains will be thrown away. I say the same to 
you. Now, do with a good grace what you must do 
any way ; I mean, do it in a spirit of kindness, and 
do not make me unhappy. Farewell, my very dear 
brother." 

This letter brought Blaise at once to his sister's 
side. He came the day after receiving it, and saw 
her for the first time, perhaps, since she left him, in 
the convent parlor through the grated window. 

" He was nearly wild with a terrible headache," 
Jacqueline writes to Madame Perier— " the result of 
my letter. Yet he was much softened ; for instead of 
the two years' delay he had asked before, he only 
wanted me to wait till All Saints' Day" — the last of 
October. " But seeing me determined not to put it 
off long, and yet complaisant enough to allow him a 
little more time to get accustomed to the thought, he 
gave up entirely, and even expressed pity for me that 
I had been obliged to delay so long that which I had 
set my heart upon. Nevertheless, he did not return 
at the appointed hour to settle the exact time, but 
M. d'Andilly, by my request, was good enough to 
send for him Saturday, and to argue with him so skill- 
fully and yet cordially that he agreed to everything 
we wished." 

Thus far Jacqueline had gained her point, but pain- 



Fresh Trials. 209 



ful difficulties were yet to come — difficulties of a kind 
quite unthought of by her. She had no idea of enter- 
ing Port Royal empty-handed, and took it as a matter 
of course that her portion of her father's property was 
to go to endow the convent. But to her great sur- 
prise, her brother and her sister — yes, even her faith- 
ful Gilberte — were not inclined to agree with her in 
this view. If she had chosen the spiritual riches, 
they seemed to think it but right and natural that 
they should have the earthly. They viewed the 
case, as poor Jacqueline says, " in an entirely secular 
manner." The mixture of grief, vexation, and morti- 
fication in her heart at this unexpected contretemps is 
curious to witness. For the proud and high-spirited 
daughter of M. Pascal to come to Port Royal portion- 
less, is, indeed, a bitter thing. But she humbles her- 
self even to this, and "begs earnestly" for admission 
as a " lay-sister." " If my reception must be a gratu- 
itous one, I thought that out of gratitude to the sis- 
terhood, for the double favor of welcoming me with- 
out a dowry, I could do no less than serve them as a 

menial for the rest of my life But God, the 

Searcher of hearts, knew me to be unworthy of an 
office so honorable in His sight, and that my past and 
present pride needed a punishment instead of a re- 
ward. He therefore restrained Father Singlin from 
giving his consent." 

In a " Relation," which takes up fifty pages of 



210 Sister and Saint. 

Cousin's volume, Jacqueline gives the details of this 
whole affair. The paper was written not in her own 
interest, but as part of the " Memoirs of Port Royal/' 
and notwithstanding its length, it is worthy the read- 
ing of any one who is interested in the study of char- 
acter. It shows that the infirmities of human nature, 
in convents and out of them, were much the same in 
the seventeenth century as now. Yet at the same 
time it shows how far love and right feeling and re- 
ligion can go toward conquering those infirmities. 

At first Jacqueline has nothing but indignation and 
a fine scorn to bestow on her brother and sister. Her 
years of mortification had not placed her beyond the 
possibility of genuine anger and vexation. " My res- 
olution/' she says, " which they thought so unkind, 
gave my friends a fine chance of moralizing over the 
instability of human affections ! " 

Both Blaise and Gilberte wrote, giving as reasons 
for their refusal, the entaglement of her share of the 
property with their own, and various technical difficul- 
ties. If she would wait four years ', till all claims on the 
estate had been settled, they would think of it. " Dis- 
ingenuous arguments!" she exclaims, "which, had 
they been less irritated, they would never have named ! 
Not that these reasons were actually untrue/' she 
goes on to say, " but they were not such as we had 
been accustomed to use with one another ! Just think, 
my dear mother, how these letters made me feel ! — 



Fresh Trials. 2 1 1 



written in a style so changed ! . . . . my grief became 
so violent that it seems wonderful I lived through it." 

" This strong expression/' says Sainte-Beuve, " is 
no exaggeration. She does nearly die of it. Her 
intense, enthusiastic nature, frustrated on the point 
of the triumphant fulfillment of her vow, and that, 
too, by a thrust from those whom she loves, is almost 
overpowered. And we recognize here the same ten- 
der, conscientious, womanly heart that a few years 
later falls a victim to its own scruples and reproaches." 

The dear Mother Agnes sees Jacqueline's heavy 
grief and sends for her — her " fille cherie " — for a long 
private talk. With the greatest tact and wisdom she 
deals with the wounded heart. " Only eternal things 
are worth such emotion as this," she says. " Tempo- 
ral matters ought never to call forth these tears — only 
the real evils, sins, deserve those." And then, trying 
the effect of a little gayety, she declares that she is 
" really astonished ! that it is almost incredible that 
she, a novice — a novice of Port Royal ! — ready to 
make her profession — is capable of being afflicted by 
anything, least of all by such a bagatelle as a little 
money ! " 

But though the novice's heart is lightened for a 
time, Agnes sees that she has not effected a cure. So, 
in the kindness of her heart, she sets out for Des 
Champs to tell Angelique all about it, and Father 
Singlin, too, who happens to be there for a few days. 



212 Sister and Saint. 



The Mere Ang&ique's advice is characteristic. 
"Tell her to relinquish it all t"o her relatives, and not 
to mix herself up in the matter any further. And let 
her give her whole mind to her approaching profes- 
sion." 

Dowry or no dowry, lay-sister or lady-boarder — the 
profession was the main thing in Angelique's mind. 
That was a matter of course. When was Port Royal 
— since she had anything to do with it, certainly — 
known to delay a profession on the score of poverty ? 

But good Father Singlin has the guidance not only 
of Jacqueline's conscience, but of the Reverend Moth- 
er's as well, and by this time he has gained a good 
deal of facility in reading souls. " He did not en- 
tirely agree with our Mother," says the Relation, " for 
he feared there might be too much generosity and 
too little humility in the advice ! " 

And he " improved " the occasion (perhaps on the 
way back to Paris, whither they both returned the 
next day), by a few short remarks. " When we have 
overcome the avarice of wealth," he said, "we ought 
to beware of falling into the opposite extreme and 
becoming greedy of praise, and ostentatious of our 
generosity, while we despise those who still cling to 
their property." 

After some further conference, however, he advised 
Jacqueline to adopt the Mere Angelique's plan, but 
he chose to dictate her letter to her brother himself, 



Fresh Trials. 213 



"lest my own words should be too warm," says Jac- 
queline, frankly. "This letter/' she continues, "could 
not be^short, and it kept me busy till evening so that 
I did not see our Mother. But, on the next day, 
as was her custom after returning from the coun- 
try, she sent for all the novices, and when my turn 
came to salute her, I could not help saying that I was 
the only sorrowful one among the sisters, who were 
all delighted at her return. ' What ? ' said she, ' is it 
possible, my daughter, that you are still sad ? Were 
you not prepared for trials ? ' . . . . And then she 
talked to me a long time on the emptiness of all human 
affection, keeping her arm around me with much ten- 
derness ! * — dear, inconsistent Angelique ! 

" The next day, also, ' having noticed that my looks 
were unusually sad/ she left the choir before Mass 
began, and sending for me, did her best to give 
me comfort. Not content with this brief effort of 
kindness, as soon as Mass was over, she signed to me 
to follow her, and then supported my head on her 
bosom for a full hour, caressing me all the time with 
a mother's tenderness. I can truly say that she 
omitted nothing in her power that could charm away 
my distress." 

" I told her," says Jacqueline, naively, " that it was 
the injustice done to the establishment that troubled 
me, and that personally I was neither hurt nor angry, 
but simply indifferent. 'You are mistaken, my 



2 14 Sister and Saint. 

daughter,' said she. ' Nothing is more painful or hard 
to bear than wounded affection. I know you feel 
deeply the injustice done to the House, but your own 
share in this gives you a keener pang, for self-love 
mingles in everything we do, and is the mainspring of 
this mighty sorrow ! ' 

" She was then so good as to give me the details of 
several similar cases, without mentioning names. I 
suppose this was done as much for the sake of afford- 
ing me that species of comfort derivable from com- 
panionship in misery, as to convince me that we never 
take the interests of justice so much to heart as when 
they concern ourselves." 

" Now forget all that is past," says the good Moth- 
er, at the end of this long talk, " and speak and write 
to your friends as if nothing had occurred, merely 
telling them that you confirm your resignation (of 
the property) in their favor. And you must do this in 
all sincerity, avoiding a spirit of pride, as if you had 
been more generous than they, and avoiding, also, a 
w r ish to coax them into obliging you. If our actions 
do not arise from genuine love they are worthless." 

Pascal, it seems, was at this time absent from the 
city for a few days, but when he came home and 
found Jacqueline's letters awaiting him, he at once 
presented himself again in the convent parlor. Port 
Royal's nobility had challenged his, and he was not 
found wanting! He undertook "a f instant" to 



Fresh Trials. 215 

manage the whole affair, and without waiting to free 
his sister's portion from its entanglement with the 
rest of the estate, to make a gift in his own name to 
the convent, "taking upon himself all risks and 
charges," Thus suddenly and simply was the diffi- 
culty removed. 

As to Pascal's first position in the matter, Reuch- 
lin explains it thus : " In the case of twins it is fre- 
quently observable that the death of one is soon fol- 
lowed by that of the other. Blaise Pascal and Jac- 
queline Pascal were twins in soul, and when the 
former strove to prevent his sister's complete identifi- 
cation with Port Royal, he was in reality struggling 
for the right of his own independence — fighting for 
his own life. Another pretext for delay presented 
itself in this difficulty about the property, and he 
eagerly seized it." But as soon as he saw that it was 
useless, that Jacqueline's determination remained un- 
shaken in spite of the worst he could do, he gave up 
without another word. Gilberte, for her part, seems 
to have acted only out of sympathy for her brother, 
and from the natural "secular" view of the matter. 
But she yields in the end as gracefully as does her 
brother. 

And so, at last, the eve of the solemn day had 
actually come — the day so long delayed, so ardently 
desired ! Is Jacqueline as happy as she expected to 
be? A few days before, she wrote to her sister: 



216 Sister and Saint. 

" There is nothing but sorrow everywhere " (referring 
to the war), "yet I am full of joy, for I am to take the 
veil on the glorious feast of Trinity. After so much 
opposition, it seems like a dream to find myself so 
near it. I shall fear that it is only an illusion till the 
ceremony is really over. But I will not w T aste time 
in expatiating on my happiness, for you can not 
doubt it." Did ever expectant bride write a happier 
letter on the eve of her wedding-day ? 

The nuns went rather early to their cells that May 
evening, for to-morrow was to be a great day for them. 
Perhaps Jacqueline Pascal lingered, like St. Agnes, a 
little while at her window looking at the solemn stars. 

The airs from the garden were soft and sweet, and 
the pink horsechestnut blossoms were dropping now 
and then through the stillness, as they drop now on 
May evenings in the gardens of Paris. That " noble 
house " in the Faubourg St. Jacques, was very full 
that night, for many of the sisters had come in from 
Port Royal des Champs to see the ceremony. The 
next day's dinner had been prepared overnight, so 
that lay-sisters and all might have an opportunity to 
be present at the services. 

But scarcely had quiet settled down on the house 
when voices and quick steps were heard about the 
gates, and the frightened women were soon out of 
their beds. It was war-time, and they were living in 
constant expectation of danger. They found, how- 



Fresh Trials. 217 



ever, that it was not a troop of soldiers who had 
taken possession of the house. It was only a band of 
nuns who had been driven out of their convent at 
Etampes and had walked all the way to Paris. 

"These poor sisters reached the Faubourg St. Jac- 
ques about nine o'clock," says the story. " Some of 
them had friends in the city, but knew not where to 
find them ; others w T ere friendless. It was quite dark, 
they had no guide, no guard, and did not know what 
to do. As they passed the gates of Port Royal one 
of them recognized the convent. She bade her com- 
panions be of good cheer. Madame de Port Royal" 
— Madame du cceur Royal, as she was often called — 
" would take them in." 

They were not disappointed. It was against the 
rules for an abbess to receive members of another 
community without the permission of the archbishop. 
" But Angelique said, l Charity is above law/ and 
opened her gates." And now was made evident the 
good Providence which had led them to cook to-mor- 
row's dinner overnight ! These sisters must be fed 
first of all. Then came the more difficult task of 
finding beds for them. " We began to gather up all 
that we could," says one of the nuns. "There was 
nothing to be met in the passages and on the stairs 
but sisters dragging their beds, pillows, coverlets, 
mattresses, and doing it all with the heartiest good- 
will" 

10 



21S Sister and Saint. 

The next day, with all these unexpected guests and 
with the two communities of Port Royal to witness 
her profession, Jacqueline Pascal took the veil as 
novice. We do not know whether her brother and 
sister were present. No details of the ceremony have 
been preserved. It was probably conducted according 
to the " Constitutions " of the convent, with great 
simplicity. Few guests from " the world " were per- 
mitted ; all attempts to excite public interest by dis- 
play were prohibited. The dress of the candidate 
must be plain and inexpensive. Pearls and other 
ornaments were forbidden ; and instead of the usual 
entire severance of the hair, the abbess only cut off a 
little from the ends. " If the candidate should after- 
ward repent of her consecration she was not to be 
deterred from re-entering society by the loss of that 
feminine adornment." 



A BUNDLE OF LETTERS WHICH 
TELL THEIR OWN STORY. 



XV. 



A BUNDLE OF LETTERS WHICH TELL THEIR OWN 
STORY. 

TO M. Perier, during an alarming illness of his 
wife: 
" July 31, 1653. 

"My dear Sister and Brother: — I write to 
you both, if God permit this letter to find you both 
in a state to read it, which, after your note of the 
24th, I scarcely dare to hope. You can imagine the 
state of my own feelings ; I do not pretend to express 
them. But I think it my duty in this extremity to 
render all the assistance I can, both to my sister and 
yourself. I pray for you as often as possible, and our 
mothers have frequently reminded the sisterhood to 

commend her case to God We can not have a 

better opportunity of testing whether we possess real 
faith 

" If it please Him to grant my sister the happiness of 

seeing His face in preference to ourselves, why should 

(221) 



222 Sister and Saint. 

we oppose her blessedness ? I see no blessedness to 
be found in this world except in giving up all things 
for God ; but even this is not to be compared with 
the full possession of Him and the certainty of never 

losing that felicity 

" God knows that I love my sister more than I did 
when we were both in the world, and yet it seemed 
to me then that nothing could increase my affection ; 
but whereas at that time my chief wishes and anxieties 
were for her life (which always has been, and still is, 
dearer to me than my own), they now relate to her 
eternal life. Therefore, violent as my grief is, and 
though I am continually in dread of hearing the fatal 
news, trembling so that I can scarcely stand if any one 
looks as if he were going to speak to me, yet, when I 
take into account the misery and dangers of this pres- 
ent life, especially for a person immersed in worldly 
occupations, I can not but accuse myself of selfishly 
desiring my own benefit rather than hers. And so 
my most earnest prayers to God are that the infant 
may be an heir of grace and that the mother's illness 

may be sanctified Tell her to remember the 

beautiful saying of M. de St. Cyran, that ' the sick 
should look upon their bed as an altar whereon they 
continually offer up the sacrifice of their life for God 
to take at His pleasure ' ; and this other : ' The pains 
and various inconveniences of illness are sounds that 
serve to warn the virgins of the Bridegroom's ap- 



A Bundle of Letters. 223 

proach.' Let her hope to go in with Him to that 
blessed marriage. 

" S(EUR DE SAINTE EUPH^MIE, 

"{Religieuse Indigne)" 

Under the same date Jacqueline urges her brother- 
in-law, in case of her sister's recovery, to testify his 
gratitude by leaving his wife and family and becoming 
a recluse. Happily, he did not follow this advice, 
but we are told that, after this time, he wore a girdle 
lined with iron points, though his humility kept this 
fact a secret till after his death. He used also to 
have a plank in his bed, and made his bed himself in 
order to prevent discovery. 

To Madame Perier, bearing joyful tidings : 

"Dec. 8, 1654. 

" It is not right that you should longer be ignorant 
of what God has wrought in the heart of one so dear 
to us ; but I wish you to learn it from himself, in 
order that your every doubt may be done away. All 
that I now have time to tell you is that God has gra- 
ciously given him a great wish to be entirely devoted 
to his service, though in what mode of life is not yet 
determined. For more than a year he has felt a 
thorough contempt for the world, and an almost in- 
supportable disgust for its votaries ; and yet, though 
his excitable temperament would naturally lead him 



:24 Sister and Saint. 

to extremes, he behaves with a moderation that 
encourages me to hope for good. He has put him- 
self entirely under Pere Singling direction. 

11 Though his health is worse than it has been for a 
long time, it does not in the least affect his resolu- 
tion, which shows that the reasons he formerly urged 
were only a pretense. 

14 I perceive in him a humility and submission, 
even toward myself, which astonishes me. I have 
now no more to add, except that it is evident another 
spirit than his own is at work within him. Farewell ; 
let all this be kept secret, even from him, 
" I am yours entirely, 

" Sister Euphemie." 

To Madame Perier, giving further particulars of 
the good work : 

" Port Royal, January 25, 1655. 

" My very dear Sister : — I wonder if your im- 
patience to receive intelligence has been greater than 
mine to communicate it ; yet, as I had no time to 
waste, I was afraid to write too soon, lest I might 
have to unsay what I had prematurely said. But 
now things are at a point where you ought to know 
of them, let the result be, by God's good pleasure, 
what it may. 

" It would be doing you injustice not to relate the 
whole story from the beginning. 



A Bundle of Letters. 225 

" He came to see me toward the close of last Sep- 
tember, and during the visit, opened his heart to me 
in such a way that I felt a deep pity for him. He 
acknowledged that in the midst of his occupations, 
which were numerous and of a nature to excite in 
him a love for the world, he still often felt a desire to 
leave it altogether. That, by reason of his aversion 
for the follies and amusements of society, and by 
reason of the constant reproaches of conscience, he 
found himself more detached from the world than he 
had ever been before ; but that, on the other hand, 
God seemed to have forsaken him, and he experienced 
no longings after Him 

" This confession gave me great surprise and de 
light, and from that time I began to hope for him as 
I had not done before. If I were to recount all his 
other visits in detail, it would fill a volume, for they 
w r ere afterward so frequent and so long that I seemed 
to myself to have no other work to do than to follow 
him and watch his progress. I did not attempt to 
hurry him in the least, but I saw him growing in 
such a way that I scarcely knew him for the same 
person. You will see it also, if God carries on the 
work, and particularly in his humility, submission, 
self-distrust, even to the point of scorn of self and 
desire to become as nothing in the esteem and mem- 
ory of man. This is what he is now ; only God 
knows what he will become. 



226 Sister and Saint. 

" There were many visits and much conflict on the 
subject of choosing a spiritual guide. He saw the 
necessity of having one ; but, although the person 
best suited to him was already found and he could 
not bear to think of any one else, yet his self-distrust 
made him afraid of being guided by partiality. / 
saw clearly enough that this hesitation only arose 
from the independence yet remaining in his soul, and 
catching at any excuse for avoiding the complete sub- 
jection to which he was tending. But I would not 
influence him. I merely said that I thought it was 
our duty to select the best physicians we could find, 

both for the soul and for the body At length 

his mind was made up. But our task was not over 
yet, for M. Singlin hesitated to undertake the charge, 
chiefly on account of a long-continued infirmity which 
prevents his speaking without great pain. 

" Meanwhile many things occurred, too long and 
unimportant to be repeated here ; the principal event 
being that our young convert came of his own accord 
to the conclusion that a temporary withdrawal from 
home would be serviceable to him. M. Singlin was 
then at Port Royal des Champs for the benefit of his 
health ; and therefore Blaise (although he was ter- 
ribly afraid of having it known that he held com- 
munication with the convent) resolved to go thither 
under pretext that business called him into the coun- 
try. By changing his name, leaving his servants in 



A Bundle of Letters, 227 

some neighboring village, and proceeding on foot to 
M. Singlin, he hoped that no one would recognize 
him or discover his object, and that, in this way, he 
might effect a temporary retreat. 

" I advised him not to take such a step without 
consulting M. Singlin ; and M. Singlin, on his part, 
forbade it altogether. M. Singlin wrote him a beau- 
tiful letter, and in it he constituted me as my brother's 

directress until God made his own duty plain 

When M. Singlin at length returned, I entreated him 
to release me from my dignity, and said so much that 
I obtained my desire. They then both thought it 
would be best for Blaise to make a trip into the coun- 
try for the sake of being more alone than he could 
be in town. His particular friend (the Due de 
Roannez) had returned, and took up nearly all his 
time. 

He, accordingly, made the Date his confidant 
(receiving his consent, which was not given without 

tears), and set out the day after Epiphany 

He has procured a room, or rather a cell, among the 
recluses of Port Royal, and thence he writes me that 
he finds himself extremely happy, being lodged and 
treated like a prince — a prince of St. Bernard's 
stamp, dwelling in a lonely spot, where the pro- 
fession of poverty is carried out as far as discretion 
will allow. 

" He is present at every service from Prime to 



228 Sister and Saint. 

Complines, and does not find the least inconvenience 

in rising at five o'clock. 

" It seems to be God's will, also, that he shall fast 

* 

as well as watch, though, in doing so, he must defy 
all medical rules which forbid him to do either. But 
he finds that his supper begins to give him pain in 
the chest, and I think he will omit it. 

" He will not miss his directress, for M. Singlin has 
provided him with a confessor, M. de Saci, with 
whom he was not before acquainted, a man who is 
beyond praise, and who has completely charmed him 
already." 

(M. de Saci was one of Madame le Maitre's sons, 
an elegant writer, translator of the Bible, and one of 
the brightest lights of Port Royal). 

" He told only two persons where he was going 
when he set out. However, it was suspected. Some 
say he has turned monk ; others hermit ; others, 
again, that he is at Port Royal ; and he knows all 
this, but does not care for it 

" I have not been able to finish this letter till to- 
day, Feb. 8. 

" Business just now detains Blaise at home, but, as 

soon as he can. he will go back to his solitude 

He is anxious to do something for our little cousin, 
the daughter of Pascal the overseer ; and as this con- 
vent is very charitable, we hoped to get her received 
here as a boarder. But I doubt whether either 



A Bundle of Letters. 229 

mother or child would be willing. Write me about 
it, please, as soon as you can and say how we had 
better manage it. I am very anxious she should 
come, for I look upon her as a sister and can not think 
of her situation, either bodily or spiritually, without 
a shudder. Besides, she is my father's niece, and I 
can understand how he would have felt for her from 
my own feelings toward your children. 

"Sister Euphemie." 

To M. Pascal during his retreat at Les Granges 

(Port Royal des Champs) : 

" January 19, 1655. 

" My very dear Brother : — It gives me as much 
delight to find you cheerful in solitude as it used to 
give me pain, when I saw you immersed in the gay- 
eties of the world. I hardly know, however, how M. 
de Saci gets along with a penitent so full of happi- 
ness. Instead of expiating worldly pleasures by un- 
ceasing tears, you are only relinquishing them for 
more reasonable joys and a more allowable play of 
fancy. 

" For my part, I think your penance very moderate 
indeed, and there are few people who would not envy 
you it ! " 

A few more playful, but rather obscure allusions 
follow: "And now," says the writer, " I hereby put 
an end to the willful nonsense of this letter. Your 



230 Sister and Saint. 

eager desire to renounce every semblance of worldly 

distinction is very praiseworthy The same must 

be said of your wooden spoon and earthen platter 
about which you wrote me. These are the gold and 
precious stones of Christianity. None but princes 
should have them on their tables. We must be truly 
poor in spirit if we would deserve such an honor, 
which, according to the Marquis de Renti, should be 
denied to common people. My only comfort is that, 
this kind of kingship not being hereditary, it may be 

acquired 

" I was before you in the discovery that health de- 
pends more on Jesus Christ than on the maxims of 
Hippocrates. Spiritual regimen often cures bodily ail- 
ments. Unless, indeed, God sees fit to strengthen us 
by means of sickness. Certainly it is a great privi- 
lege to have sufficient strength of body to do what 
is enjoined for the cure of our souls; but it is none 
the less a privilege to take chastisement from Him. 
In either case we are well, if we are in Him. We 
are not told, ' if any man will come after Me let him 
perform works requiring great strength/ but, Met him 
deny himself.' And sometimes a sick person may do 
this better than one in health." 

To the same ; — a fragment : 

" December 1, 1655. 

" I have been congratulated on the great fervor of 

devotion which has lifted you so far above all ordi- 



A Bundle of Letters. 231 

nary customs, that you consider a broom a superflu- 
ous piece of furniture I think that, for some 

months at least, you should try being as clean as you 
now are dirty, in order that you may show that you 
can succeed in humble and vigilant care of the body 
(which is your servant), as well as you have succeed- 
ed in humble negligence of it. After that, if you 
again find it glorious and edifying to others to be 
dirty, you can do so ; especially if it be a means of 
holiness, which I very much doubt. St. Bernard did 
not think it was." 

To Madame Perier in answer to inquiries as to 
Jacqueline's promotion in the convent : 

" June 23, 1655. 

" I had thought of answering this part of your let- 
ter in the same style in which you wrote, but I can 
not do it. All my gayety leaves me when I approach 
the topic. And I therefore entreat you to believe 
every word of what I shall now tell you, for I am 
perfectly serious. 

" I dare say my employment here has been repre- 
sented to you as much greater than it in fact is. 
After all, it is a mere nothing, and I do not suppose 
that any one but myself would consider it of conse- 
quence. 

" But it is quite a responsibility for me, who would 
much rather keep in the background, and am fit for 



lint. 

notJiing but to bust!: about in a tiny cell, or to sweep 
house ; for this last is an accomplishment I have 
become quite expert in, as well as in washing dishes 
and spinning. You see I have learned to be very 
handy. 

" The employment assigned me, then, is to remain 
with the novices and keep an eye on the newly- 
arrived candidates, in order to prevent such little 
mistakes as they are likely to make at first. I also 
look after their little external wants, and see that 
they are provided with shoes, stockings, pins, thread, 

etc And that you may have no more cause to 

complain of my reserve, I will tell you that it is also 
my duty to advise them in regard to their behavior. 

Xow, you know just what I have to do My 

sister Madeleine is always on the spot to correct me 

if I do wrong But for all that, I can not help 

trembling when I think that I hold the destiny, so to 
speak, of five or six girls in my hands, and that they 
are in a measure dependent on one so imperfect 

" I must acknowledge that, when you were here, I 
often felt that .it was scarcely right to keep this a 
secret from you, to whom my heart has always been 
so open, especially when you frequently asked me 
what it was that kept me so busy. I had even made 
a memorandum to ask our [Mother Agnes whether 
this confidence were not due you, but God permitted 
me always to forget it, and, since you left, it has 



A Bundle of Letters. 233 

never occurred to me. Neither have I mentioned it 
to my brother, and if he knows it, some one else has 
told him. 

" There is a great advantage in having to teach 
others the ways of God ; . . . . but it is very difficult 
to speak of God in a godly manner, and there is great 
danger of feeding others from our own penury instead 
of from His abundance. Pray for me that my two 
mites may be as acceptable to Him as the large alms 
of the wealthier. Farewell, dear sister. Yours ever 
in the Lord, 

"Sister Euph£mie, 

"An unworthy nun" 

To the same, in answer to inquiries as to the best 
method of educating her children : 

"Port Royal, August 15, 1655. 

"My very dear Sister: — I take a large sheet 
of paper, because it is my resolution, by God's help, 
to send you a long letter. When I first read the one 
you forwarded by my brother I did not intend to 
answer it at all. It seemed to me that I was very far 
from having the requisite ability for such a task, and, 
besides that, I ought not to undertake it. For there 
is nothing, in my opinion, so provoking as to see a 
little novice, whose eyes have scarcely begun to dis- 
cern the true light, taking it upon herself to enlighten 



254 Sister and Saint. 

others, and to become their torch-bearer. It is really 
unendurable ! 

11 But since, on account of the humility of our 
mothers and the illness of Pere Singlin, I am totally 
unable elsewhere to procure the aid you are seeking, 
I do not know that there is any harm in saying to you 
what I have said to myself, for I feel as if you and I 
had but one heart and one soul in Christ Jesus. 

" When I had written thus far, it occurred to me 
that M. de Rebours (one of the confessors) might, 
perhaps, be able to give some advice. I broke off, 
therefore, in order to consult him, and now write 
what he says : * * * * 

" To M. Pascal, making inquiries in regard to his 
new method of teaching children to read : 

"'October 26, 1655. 

" ' Obedience and charity lead me to break silence 
before you do, my very dear brother, and when I 
least expected it ; I tell you this, lest you should be 
scandalized at my writing/ (She alludes, probably, 
to some mutual vow of silence for a certain time). 

" ' Our mothers have commanded me to ask all the 
particulars of your method of learning to read with- 
out learning the names of the letters. I can see very 
well how a child can be taught to pronounce some 
words in that way, but how do you manage with 
silent consonants following a vowel? — for instance, 



A Bundle of Letters. 235 



such a word as en ? .... I see difficulties in the sys- 
tem, but then, I am sure, you have also foreseen them 
and provided for them. 

"'So much for obedience; now for the charity.' 
(She then begs a favor of him in behalf of a poor 
young girl of their acquaintance.) ' I will not apolo- 
gize for giving you the trouble. Charity is its own 
recompense. 

"'Did you think of me on the 10th? That is the 
day of my baptism, you know. Remember me also 
to-day. The 26th of every month is dear to me since 
God gave me grace on that day to cast off forever the 
habiliments of the world. May you and all who be- 
long to you be ever the Lord's. I belong to you not 
less by grace than by nature. Properly, indeed, I 
consider myself your daughter ; I shall never forget it/ 
"Sister Euphemie, 

"An unworthy nun." 

The system of teaching here spoken of was intro- 
duced by Pascal into the Port Royal schools, and 
through their text-books, adopted afterward through- 
out France. It is now used in many English schools, 
and has been introduced somewhat in the United 
States. Cousin says: "A method of orthography 
certainly adds little to the glory of the great mathe- 
matician, the great scientist, and the great rhetorician, 
yet it serves to bring into relief that exactness and 



236 



Sister and Saint. 



clearness — the special attribute of Pascal's genius — 
which he carried into the smallest as well as into the 
greatest things." 

Pascal's system of logic, set forth in his little 
treatise, " De Tart de Persuader/' was about this time 
also adopted at Port Royal. 



TEACHING THE CONVENT SCHOOL. 



XVI. 



TEACHING THE CONVENT SCHOOL. 



THE letters we have just read tell us better 
than any other words could do, the story of 
Jacqueline Pascal's life between 1652 and 
1655. They show us the increasing honor in which 
she is held by that household of noble women among 
whom she has found her home. They show the great 
confidence reposed in her by her superiors, evidenced 
by her appointment as Sub-Mistress of the Novices 
before she had herself passed her novitiate. And 
still stronger proof of confidence and high esteem is 
the fact that careful, conscientious Abbe Singlin 
placed in her hands the infinitely momentous and 
delicate task of guiding her brother's newly-stirred 
conscience. 

They very touchingly show that brother's trust in 
her as he makes visit after visit and unburdens his 
troubled heart before her ; and they show her elder 
sister's exaggerated reverence when she asks of the 

(239) 



240 Sister a?id Saint. 

inexperienced novice how she shall best bring up her 
family. 

But, above all, these letters give us a hint of the 
inner life — a glimpse at that " secret greenness" which 
"only One" can fully see. 

We perceive a rapid growth of character. We see 
a great increase of sweetness — of love and of joy — in 
her heart. The beauty of holiness is beginning to be 
apparent. Instead of the chilling virtues of those 
first years of devotion to God there is a pleasant 
warmth and light. She is not afraid now to tell her 
brother and sister how much she loves them. " It 
seems to me we are but one heart and one soul in 
Jesus Christ," she writes to Gilberte. " Did you 
think of me on the 10th?" she asks Blaise, showing 
how completely the old freedom and sympathy is 
established between them and how sweet it is to her. 

In every way, indeed, there is an increasing natu- 
ralness and healthfulness in her religion, as there 
must be in all spiritual life, the nearer it approaches 
to Him who is the Life. 

Not that faults are wanting. As long as we know 
Jacqueline Pascal we shall see those, yet more and 
more, from this time, they seem to be the faults of 
her century, her education, her Church, rather than 
faults of character. 

Undoubtedly, Jacqueline's great joy in her broth- 
er's conversion hastened her spiritual growth. Joy is 



Teaching the Convent School. 241 

good for souls. Whatever may be said and may be 
true of the blessed effects of sorrow, those who have 
had great sorrows and great joys know that joy is the 
natural atmosphere of the soul. He who has swung 
open the doors of heaven to His children knows this 
well. 

And so, when the desire of this sweet woman's 
heart is granted, when her cup runs over — we see her 
coming back to the naturalness and freedom of her 
early days. Her heart comes again as the heart of a 
little child. She does from joyful enthusiasm, not 
from forcing duty, what her hand finds to do. 

It was a great year for the Port Royalists — this 
year of Pascal's definite identification with them and 
farewell to the world. In their histories it forms a 
distinct era, and other events are dated from it, as 
one dates from the accession of a sovereign. 

In the family annals the change is known as his 
" second conversion." Many striking and minute ac- 
counts of it are given. We will content ourselves 
with Jacqueline's story as we have read it in that long 
letter to their sister. It can not fail to be a faithful 
picture, though less sharp in its outlines than most 
of the Jansenist writers have made it. 

There can be no doubt that, during those years 
when mental activity was denied him, Blaise Pascal 
made a thorough trial of material pleasures, yet the 

straitest of the Jansenists — those who most bitterly 
11 



242 Sister and Saint. 

deplore those years of defection — are careful to 
say that no hint of vice ever attached to his life. 
" His feet, indeed, trod the mire/' says one, "but his 
divine wings remained forever unsoiled." 

During these years, a young nobleman — the Due 
de Roannez — was Pascal's most intimate friend. 
There is a suspicion of an attachment on Pascal's 
part for the duke's sister, a girl of sixteen — an un- 
spoken love, however, if it existed at all, and hope- 
less, probably, in the lover's mind, on account of the 
great difference in rank and fortune. 

A treatise on " Love," probably written about this 
time, goes toward establishing the theory. But stu- 
dents of Pascal's life differ in their opinions, and it is 
one of those questions which can never be settled. 
Sainte-Beuve believes that " Pascal never passionately 
loved any being but his Lord and Saviour." 

Mdlle. de Roannez became for a time a novice at 
Port Royal, but was urged by her friends into a mar- 
riage which proved most unfortunate. Pascal corre- 
sponded with her at intervals throughout his life. 
Her brother, the duke, became warmly interested in 
the Port Royal party, and was one of the editors of 
the first edition of Pascal's " Thoughts." 

When such a young man as we know Blaise Pascal 
to be " came and sold all that he had " and followed 
Jesus, we should expect great ardor and enthu- 
siasm from him, and we find it showing itself 



Teaching the Convent School. 243 

sometimes in painful forms. Even the nun Jac- 
queline, as we see, is obliged to reprove him for 
his neglect of the body, while he revels in his new- 
found spiritual joy. Ill-health, doubtless, deepened 
the naturally somewhat ascetic tone of Pascal's 
mind, and we see through all the remainder of his 
life a relentless crushing out of much that is beautiful 
and noble in human nature. 

He was a most ingenious self-tormentor and did not 
always remember that those who loved him were, of 
necessity, included in the torment. While Jacqueline's 
character is budding anew into fragrance and bloom, 
his seems to be growing hard and dry, like some 
brown lily-bulb which gives no hint of the glory and 
sweetness within. Both bud and bulb will burst into 
spotless beauty when the full summer comes ! 

But at his harshest and his driest, Jacqueline, his 
twin soul, understands him. 

" I felt astonished and discouraged by his coldness 
and occasional rebuffs," writes Madame Perier, speak- 
ing of a time when he was ill at her house. " I did 
not then know that he thought it wrong to testify 
affection. I wrote about it to my sister and com- 
plained that my brother was unkind and did not love 
me, and that I really seemed to displease him even 
when I rendered him the most affectionate services. 
My sister wrote me that I was mistaken, that she 
knew the contrary. He loved me dearly, — as well as 



244 Sister and Saint. 

I could desire, — and if opportunity offered for him 
to help me in any way, he would prove by deeds 
what he thought it wrong to express in words. And, 
indeed, I afterward found it so." 

We have mentioned her brother's conversion as 
one reason for Jacqueline's happiness. Another 
reason was her busy life. " I am never able to write 
above two dozen lines/' she says, "often not more 
than five or six without being interrupted by some 
question." For, in addition to her other duties, Jac- 
queline was soon appointed to teach in the convent 
school of Port Royal de Paris. It was a large and 
popular boarding and day-school — as popular, proba- 
bly, as any young ladies' school in Paris is to-day. Mrs. 
Schimmelpenninck says, " It would be easy to cite a 
prodigious number of young ladies educated in these 
schools " (that at Port Royal des Champs and the one 
in the city), " who have since edified the world, the 
court, or the cloister by their wisdom, piety, and tal- 
ent. It is well known with what sentiments of admi- 
ration, gratitude, and reverence they always spoke of 
the education they received at Port Royal." 

Anne Arnauld had been for some years the Princi- 
pal of the Paris school. The pupils w r ere very fond 
of her, especially the younger ones. No wonder ! for 
we are told : " It was so pleasant to her to gratify 
them that she could not help giving them sweet 
meats." However, being a nun — a Jansenist — a con- 



Teaching the Convent School. 245 

scientious and truly loving as well as an indulgent 
woman — " she always prayed before giving them that 
the children might not like them very much ! " 

"One day," the story goes, "the children were 
naughty, and Sister Anne left the school-room saying 
she should not return, for it grieved her too much to 
see how little love they had either for God or for 
their duty." The children, on their part, spent the 
morning in tears, " entreating the other teachers to 
go and fetch Sister Anne and tell her how sorry they 
were. At length some one went, and she relented 
immediately and came to them. They flocked around 
her, and she said it was a great consolation to her 
that they were sorry for their faults, because God for- 
gave those who repented, and it was, therefore, quite 
right that she should forgive them also. With this, 
she drew a bag full of sugar-plums from under her 
mantle and distributed them, saying that when St. 
Louis wept as he thought of the Passion of our Lord 
he found the tears which fell upon his lips were sweet 
as honey; and she gave them the sugar-plums in 
order that they might remember that when we weep 
for our faults our tears are sweet." 

Sometimes Sister Anne would bear the burden of 
the children's faults and do penance for them herself, 
for she could not pass over the sins, nor could she 
bear to punish the children. " She had not learned," 
says Frances Martin, "that the tenderness of their 



246 Sister and Saint. 

Father in heaven was as great as her own, and 
thought that she must appease Him by her own suf- 
ferings.' ' 

And now to this delightful Sister Anne and to one 
or two others of the talented Arnauld sisters, is add- 
ed Jacqueline Pascal with her clear, well-trained in- 
tellect, her talent, her noble, womanly character. 

Fortunate school-girls ! Justly do the " Memoires " 
say : " The education they here received under the 
sisters of Pascal and of Arnauld, was far different 
from that elsewhere afforded to ladies." 

The new teacher was never so demonstrative as 
Anne Arnauld. She proved her love in a very differ- 
ent and certainly a far less beautiful manner. 

In the opinions of her superiors she was clearly a 
successful teacher, for, after two or three years* ex- 
perience, she was directed by Father Singlin to draw 
up a code of " Reglements pour les Enfants," ac- 
cording to the Port Royal plan. This was added to 
the " Constitutions," though with the caution that in 
other places it might not be easy or even advisable 
to carry them out fully. Some children might not 
be able to endure so strict a discipline, neither could 
all teachers enforce it, without losing the love and 
confidence of their charge, " which is all-important." 

No one who loves children can read these rules 
without shivering. " Yet," says Vinet, " where must 
be the eyes of those who can read them and not dis- 



Teaching the Convent School. 247 

cover them to be full of the most considerate tender- 
ness? " 

And we must remember that the chilliness and 
harshness which so offends us is not to be charged to 
the writer so much as to the whole of the false, un- 
natural system of which she was one of the few re- 
deeming features. 

These poor little Port Royal girls are to rise at 
half-past four or five, according to their size and 
strength. "They must rise promptly, not allowing 
themselves time to get thoroughly awake, for fear of 
yielding to idleness. ,, 

Prayer, both silent and audible, is the first duty, 
and then the elder ones comb each other's hair " in 
perfect silence/' This " deep, morning silence," is 
strongly insisted on and lasts, so far as we can see, 
through the greater part of the day. For, after 
Prime, at half-past six, the beds are made by the 
girls in couples, still in silence. Next, hands are 
washed and mouths rinsed with wine and water, 
and breakfast follows, during which " one of them 
reads the Martyrology for the day." 

At half-past seven, all withdraw to the work-room, 
" where they must diligently improve their time and 
keep a strict silence. If it is necessary to speak they 
must do so softly, so as not to interrupt those who 
are old enough to hold communion with God. Even 
the little ones are taught not to speak, though they 



248 Sister and Saint. 

are allowed to play when their work has been well 
and silently done, but each must play by herself so 
that there may be no noise." And here is the first 
glimpse of the tenderness of which Vinet speaks, as 
the writer adds, in her own simple, kindly way, " I 
have found that this solitude does not trouble the 
children, for when they are used to it, they seem 
to amuse themselves very merrily." We have a 
second view of her tenderness, and, at the same time, 
a specimen of shrewdness and good management in 
this remark : " We teach them that they ought to 
perform disagreeable tasks with more industry and 
good nature than pleasant ones. But, nevertheless, 
we do really humor them in their tasks as far as we 
can, without allowing them to perceive it" 

At eight o'clock, the governess reads till half-past 
eight, when all go to church. 

Then comes a writing lesson (silent), before which 
each offers a short prayer that God would help her 
to perform that duty aright. "We try to impress 
their minds gently with a holy habit of never begin- 
ning an action of any importance without prayer." 

At eleven, they all examine themselves and after- 
ward repeat the Confiteor. 

At length, " the dinner bell rings." Can they be 
girls now and run down, waiting with bright faces 
around the table till their teacher joins them ? " On 
entering the dining-hall, they curtsey in pairs and do 



Teaching the Convent School. 249 

the same in passing any of the sisters. They stand 
modestly in their places till grace is said, their sleeves 

falling over their hands They must keep their 

eyes always down, not looking on either hand, but 
quietly listening to what is read." 

On leaving the dining-hall, they have a recess. 
And now for a little natural life ! 

" The little ones are kept apart from the elder ones 
in order that the latter may converse more quietly 
and discreetly." " If the recess is held in a room, 
the elder ones gather in a circle round the mistress 
and talk modestly and sociably, according to their 
ability." , " They may be allowed to play at innocent 
games, such as battledore and shuttlecock. Not that 
our girls avail themselves of this permission, for all 
of them, except the very youngest, are so fond of 
work that, as I have said, a holiday is irksome to 
them." " The children are to avoid every kind of 
personal familiarity, and never to caress, to kiss, or 
even touch one another on any pretext. Neither must 
the elder ones pet the little children. 

" The recess closes with prayers asking for grace to 
enable them to pass holily the remainder of the day." 

It would be wearisome to follow these school-girls 
through the whole day, till the evening bell calls them 
from their walk in the garden to undress " with silence 
and dispatch," and go each to her separate bed. We 
will simply make a few more extracts from the rules : 

XI* 



250 Sister and Saint. 

"We avoid talking much to the children, feeling 
that instruction does more good if they are not 
wearied with it." 

" We do not seek to render them too spiritually- 
minded, unless God himself has made them so, be- 
cause either they might set too close a watch upon 
themselves and so weary the mind and fancy, instead 
of communing with God, or, on the other hand, might 
feel too much discouraged at finding it impossible to 
attain the perfection demanded of them." 

" I find it a good way of forming a habit of indus- 
try to allow them to do at recess some work which 
they like and can not do at any other time. I taught 
them, for instance, to make worsted gloves, and as 
they can only do this during their recess, they are 
very eager after it." 

" We are careful to make them speak politely, hold 
themselves uprightly and gracefully, and curtsey 
when they enter or leave the room." 

" They must not speak of the singing of the sister- 
hood, remarking that one sister sings better than 
another, etc." 

" Uncharitable conversation is specially prohibited, 
and they are taught never to say anything that might 
be unpleasant to one of their number, though in it- 
self harmless, because it is enough to know that any 
one present would prefer some other topic of dis-* 
course." 



Teaching the Convent School. 251 

" We try to make them yield precedence to one an- 
other from that holy politeness which charity alone 
produces. 

" I think that really to do children any good we 
ought never to speak or act for their benefit without 
first looking to God and asking His holy aid." 

" We ought to be very kind and tender toward 
them, never neglecting either their internal or exter- 
nal wants, and showing them that we grudge nothing 
to serve them." 

" Example is the most effective method of teach- 
ing. For the devil helps them to remember our 
slightest failures, and hinders them from remembering 
the little good we do." 

" As to their trivial defects, I think it best seldom 
to notice these, because they otherwise gradually get 
accustomed to be found fault with." 

" They ought to be treated politely, spoken to with 
respect, and yielded to where it is possible." 

"We ought to consider them as sacred deposits 
placed by God in our hands, for which we must ren- 
der an account to Him. Therefore it is best to say 
little to the children, and much to God on their be- 
half." 

More and more, as we proceed, does the hidden 
love and wisdom become manifest, and as we read the 
final word we are ready to say with Mrs. Schimmel- 
penninck, " although many treatises on education have 



252 Sister and Saint. 

appeared in modern times, and many which have 
been distinguished for the splendid talents of the 
writers, perhaps not many among them surpass in 
true wisdom, in a deep knowledge of the human 
heart, or reality of experience, these ' Reglements ' of 
Jacqueline Pascal." " Nor is it to be forgotten, that 
whilst the press teems with numberless theories, this 
little, but inestimable work details a system which 
was tried, and that with unexampled success, for 
above sixty years ; and which, at the end of a hundred 
and fifty years, still entitles its author to the rever- 
ence due to transcendent piety and the admiration 
due to super-eminent talent." * 



THE MASTERPIECE AND THE 
MIRACLE. 



XVII. 

THE MASTERPIECE AND THE MIRACLE. 

ST. CYRAN and Jansen were both in their 
graves, but the truth they loved lived after 
them. Its enemies, too, were active still. The 
hatred of the Jesuits was the rightful inheritance of 
the second generation of Port Royalists who are now 
on the stage. 

In order to understand that hatred and the climax 
it now reached, it will be well at this point to recall 
some facts in regard to both Jesuits and Jansenists. 

In the first place the Jesuits had an old grudge 
against the father of the Arnaulds, on account of a 
remarkably forcible and eloquent charge he had made 
against them when he was a rising young advocate. 
This success, Pascal wittily said, was the " original 
sin" of Jansenism. And some of the later sins had 
been of the same sort. Such were those flourishing 
and popular schools and the widely-circulated school- 
books. And such were the in-creasing numbers of tal- 

(255) 



256 Sister and Saint. 

ented and influential men and women constantly 
joining the Port Royal ranks. We remember, too, 
that there was an old quarrel with Pascal in the mat- 
ter of his atmospherical experiments. Father Noel 
and his confreres could not be expected to love the 
Jansenists any better after Pascal became one of their 
number. 

More than this, the strict morals and ascetic habits 
of these people were a constant though silent reproach 
of the lax principles and "casuistic morality " of Jes- 
uitism. The ideal of true Christian living was plainly 
more nearly approached at Port Royal than in the 
Jesuit colleges. 

" A little church born of the Spirit, within the visi- 
ble and regnant church," the Jansenist body has been 
fitly called. Disowned, indeed, they were by the 
Romish communion, but " they obstinately refused 
to accept that disavowal." It was " grievous " to 
them, as Pascal said, " to find themselves in a strait 
betwixt God and the Pope." But they did their best 
for many years to stand in that difficult and danger- 
ous position. 

We must remember, now, in addition to all this, 
that the Jesuits had great influence with the Govern- 
ment. " They especially coveted," we are told, " to 
guide the consciences of men in power." "There 
were very few princes on the throne, nobles in the 
realm, dignitaries in the Church, or religious houses 



The Masterpiece and the Miracle. 257 

belonging to any order, which were not, either 
directly or remotely, under their influence." The 
young king, whatever else had been lacking in his 
education, had been well indoctrinated by his Jesuit 
confessor, Father Annat, with hatred of the Jansenists. 
And it was an easy matter to persuade Anne of Aus- 
tria and Cardinal Mazarin that the Port Royal schools 
were " hot-beds of heresy" and must be abolished. 

Early in 1656, the year to which Jacqueline Pascal's 
letters have brought us, the matter seemed to have 
reached its crisis. Over the heads of the Port Royal- 
ists hung the censure of the Sorbonne (the University 
of France) on a book of Arnauld's, " De la fr6quente 
Communion," and, worse than that, the author's con- 
demnation by the Pope. And after bewildering and 
almost interminable disputations, lasting from July of 
one year to May of the next, the Holy See had con- 
demned the celebrated " Five Propositions." 

These propositions were referred to in the chapter 
on Jansen, but we must look at them more closely 
here. They were five statements, which Father Cor- 
net, a Jesuist priest, had with marvelous subtlety and 
art framed out of Jansen's " Augustinus." "They 
were worded," Mrs. Schimmelpenninck tells us, " with 
the most artful ambiguity. The phrases were so con- 
trived as to be capable of two constructions, widely 
differing from each other." In some cases it was only 
the question of a comma's position in the sentence. 



258 Sister and Saint. 

Now, there was not one of these propositions which 
the Jansenists would not have condemned, if bearing 
the meaning the Jesuits imputed to them. But they 
denied that they were to be found in any such sense 
in the " Augustinus." 

Hence, when a " formulary " was drawn up for them 
to sign, condemning these propositions, they signed 
without any ado, but, one and all, added a line stating 
that the propositions were not to be found in Jan- 
sen's book, and pointing out wherein they differed. 

This was disappointing. Simple, straightforward 
truth had cut the twisted knot ! But the Jesuits 
were equal to the emergency, as we shall see. 

They began their work of vengeance by getting an 
order from Government for the breaking up of the 
Port Royal schools — the schools for boys. " The offi- 
cers of the police, accompanied by a troop of archers, 
were sent to Port Royal des Champs, where they 
made a list of the schools. They then proceeded to 
each, and immediately turned out all the masters and 
scholars." Racine, the poet, was a pupil in one of 
the schools at the time of the dispersion, and has 
given an account of it in his kk ' Histoire de Port Roy- 
al.'' The recluses were also driven away from Les 
Granges on pain of imprisonment. Pascal took lodg- 
ings in Paris, where he soon had plenty of work to do 
for his cause. 

" Immediately after, an order of council was signed 



The Masterpiece and the Miracle. 259 

against the nuns. It was resolved that every scholar, 
postulant, and novice should be turned out of both 
houses of Port Royal. " The decree had been given 
and was on the point of execution when two remark- 
able events occurred which had the effect of delaying 
the persecution for five years. One of these events 
was the publication of Pascal's most famous work, 
the " Provincial Letters " ; the other was a so-called 
miracle, effecting a wonderful cure on the person of 
Margaret Perier, Jacqueline's niece, who was a novice 
of Port Royal. 

The story of the " Provincial Letters " is an inter- 
esting one : 

There was a good old nobleman, the Due de Lian- 
court, living in Paris, who went one day to his church 
in the parish of St. Sulpice to confess. The duke had 
once made a retreat at Les Granges and he had a little 
granddaughter in the boarding-school at Port Royal. 

When he had finished his confession that day the 
priest said, " I can not give you absolution. You are 
guilty of two sins which you have not confessed : you 
have a relative who is a pensionnaire at Port Royal 
and you have dealings with those heretics — the gen- 
tlemen recluses of Les Granges' 9 

The aged duke admitted the facts, but was not 
willing to confess them as sins, and quietly went 
away without absolution. But the affair made a great 
deal of talk. 



260 Sister and Saint. 

Arnauld ("the great Arnauld," Angelique's young- 
est brother,) had been trying to keep still after his 
last condemnation. But he was a born controversialist 
and he could hold his peace no longer. 

He came out in a series of letters on the subject, 
and that was the signal for a wordy tournament, two 
months long, between himself single-handed and the 
doctors of the Sorbonne. Arnauld produced ream 
after ream of solid argument (in Latin), and was 
written down or talked down by the Jesuits, with 
Pere Annat, Louis Fourteenth's confessor, prominent 
among them. 

The Due de Liancourt and his affair were very soon 
left behind, as the combatants rushed once more into 
the labyrinth of the " Five Propositions." Eighteen 
or twenty sessions of the theological faculty were 
spent on the question "du fait " — that is, whether 
the propositions were, in fact, in the " Augustinus " ; 
the remainder of the time on the question du droit— 
that is, whether the propositions were orthodox if 
they were there. 

On the 14th of January — a few days before the dis- 
persion of the recluses — Arnauld was censured on the 
question of fact, and the doctors went on to take up 
the question of right, with the prospect of another 
censure on that. 

The great leader returned to his friends at Port 
Royal, we may well believe a little dispirited. "The 



The Masterpiece and the Miracle. 261 

gentlemen there/' Sainte-Beuve tells us, " all begged 
him to write something in his defense — something 
addressed to the public" His " labored, geometric 
apologies/' in Latin, addressed to the Sorbonne, did 
not come anywhere near the people, and they, seeing 
all this array of ecclesiastical and scholarly authority 
against him, could only suppose that the very founda- 
tions of the faith were in danger. "Address yourself 
to the public/' urged his friends. "It is time the 
people should be undeceived. Are you going to let 
yourself be condemned like a child that has nothing 
to say for itself ? " 

" He wrote, therefore," says Margaret Perier in her 
Memoirs, " and read his production to them all. But 
no one gave it any praise. M. Arnauld understood 
their silence, and as he did not covet applause, he 
said, ' I see very clearly you think this a poor perform- 
ance, and you are right/ and turning to M. Pascal, he 
added: 'You — you are young, — you might do some- 
thing/ " 

" M. Pascal wrote the first Provincial, and read it 
to them. M. Arnauld cried, i That is excellent ; every 
one will like that ; it must be printed.' " 

"This was done," adds Pascal's niece simply. 
"The success it had is well known, and the work 
went on." 

"The success it had," — it and its seventeen succes- 
sors — was immense. Perhaps no literary success was 



262 Sister and Saint. 

ever more immediate — and probably no series of 
eighteen letters ever more completely reversed the 
public sentiment of a nation. Jansenism and Jes- 
uitism, as they had been known in these interminable 
theological debates, for so many years, were matters 
of indifference to a large proportion of the population. 
But these letters ! — everybody wanted to read them. 
The court ladies laughed over their satires. The keen, 
clear-headed French middle classes enjoyed their sharp, 
unerring truthfulness. Thinking people were con- 
vinced by their arguments. Unthinking people were 
carried away by their eloquence. " By his inimitable 
pleasantry, Pascal succeeded in making even the dullest 
matters of scholastic theology and Jesuitical casuistry 
as attractive to the people as a comedy; and, by his 
little volume, did more to render this formidable So- 
ciety the contempt of Europe than was ever done by 
all its other enemies put together."* 

"They killed the Jesuits," says Sainte-Beuve. "I 
say killed deliberately. I know the Jesuits still live, 
and, in some respects, prosper. But I maintain that 
they are slain in the sense that they are forever fallen 
from the center of action which they occupied, and 
have lost the access to the government of the world." 
u It was a shaft from a bow doubly strung," says an= 



■ Henry Rogers, author of "The Eclipse of Faith." 



The Masterpiece and the Miracle. 263 

other writer,* — " strung with genius and piety, and 
his enemies could not recover/' 

The Chancellor of the Jesuit College was so en- 
raged at the effect of the letters that his physicians 
ordered him to be bled seven times. And far off in 
the provinces ecclesiastical councils which had met 
to censure Arnauld changed their minds and censured 
the Jesuits instead. 

Margaret Perier gives us a glimpse of her uncle's 
life while he was writing these immortal letters : 

" He went to an inn, where he was not known, and 
remained there at work under the name of M. de 
Mons." (The old home at Clermont and the PAy du 
Dome were not forgotten). "M. Perier, his brother- 
in-law, took lodgings in the same inn as a stranger 
from the country, not letting the relationship be 
known." 

One day they were very near discovery. Father 
Defretal, a Jesuit, a friend and relative of M. Perier's, 
called on the latter to give him a friendly warning. 
" He said that the Society of Jesuits were firmly 
persuaded that M. Pascal, his brother-in-law, was the 
author of those ' little letters' which were having such 
a run in Paris, and that M. Perier would do well to 
warn him and advise him to stop writing them or he 
might find himself in trouble." 



Essay in the North British Peview. 



:r a long call, " the Jesuit went away, repeating 
that If. Pascal ought to be warned and to beware. 
M. Perier was greatly relieved at his departure, foi 
at that very moment there were spread out upon his 
bed to dry a score of copies of the seventh or eighth 
letter. A Jesuit brother, who had accompanied 
Father Defretal, sat very neat the bed. but luckily 
the curtains ".ere cra.-;vr. and the tracers v.-ere no: dis- 
ci vered. hh Perier at once ran uo-s:airs t: teh M. 
Pascal, -.vhose ro:m "-as overhead, though the Jesuits 
had n:> idea o: his being s: near them." 

Neither had the Jesuits arty idea ""here these let- 

c rimed under the very shadov,- :f the Jesuit college. 
Seme :: the Port Royal gentlemen, tvho. though 



Singlin, in particular, thought that merriment v. as 
out of place when applied to reiioius subjects." 

As ::r Pascal himself, ascetic ana suherer that he 
•vas. it v.- as cmbable the sure instinct of genius 



noon 'v.- :an scarce.;/ unaerstana tnat 
abundance :: humor with which this man floe 



The Masterpiece and the Miracle. 265 

arid fields of scholasticism. " Yet we can not help 
thinking that he must have thoroughly and heartily 
enjoyed himself for once, as he gave free play to all 
those varied powers he had been trying so long to 
cramp and kill. 

He defends himself for the use of satire and for his 
entire mode of attack, in this passage of the sixteenth 
letter : 

"I was asked if I repented having written ' Les 
Provinciates.' I reply that, far from having repented, 
if I had to write them now, I would write even more 
strongly. I was asked why I have given the names 
of the authors from whom I have taken all the abom- 
inable propositions I have cited. I answer, that if I 
lived in a city where there were a dozen fountains, 
and if I certainly knew that one of them was poisoned, 
I should be obliged to warn everybody to draw no 
water from that fountain ; and, as they might think 
it pure imagination on my part, I should be obliged 
to name him who had poisoned it, rather than ex- 
pose all the city to the danger of being poisoned by 
it. I was asked why I had employed a pleasant, 
jocose, and diverting style. I reply that if I had 
written in a dogmatical style, it would have been 
only the learned who would have read, and they 
would have had no necessity to do it, being, at least, 
as well acquainted with the subject as myself : thus, 
I thought it a duty to write so as to be comprehended 



266 Sister and Saint. 

by women and men of the world, that they might 
know the danger of those maxims and propositions 
which were then universally propagated, and of which 
they allowed themselves to be so easily persuaded. 

" I was asked, lastly, if I had myself read all the 
books I have cited. I answer, No ; for in that case 
it would have been necessary to have passed my life 
in reading very bad books ; but I have read through 
the whole of ' Escobar '* tw r ice, and, for the others, 
I caused them to be read by my friends. But I have 
never used a single passage without having myself 
read it in the book cited, or without having examined 
the subject on w T hich it is adduced, or without having 
read both what precedes and what follows it, in order 
that I might not run the risk of quoting what was, in 
fact, an objection to a reply to it, which would have 
been censurable and unjust." 

One of the strongest proofs of the genius of these 
letters is the fact that, notwithstanding the difference 
in time, in country, in belief, in habits of thought, 
they are interesting reading to us to-day. 

M. Louis de Mont alt e, the supposed writer (again 
we have a hint of Clermont in the nom de plume), is 
an honest provincial gentleman, of much ignorance 
and great naivete, who sets out for Paris to gain infor- 
mation in regard to the theological disputes of the 
age, and particularly the doctrines of the Jesuits. 

* A celebrated Spanish Jesuit authority. 



The Masterpiece and the Miracle. 267 

He addresses himself to a worthy Jesuit father, 
who, in his boundless admiration for his own order, 
and in the hope of gaining a convert, details without 
hesitation- — indeed, with triumph — all the arts of 
casuistry. 

"The arch simplicity with which the provincial 
involves the worthy father in the most perplexing 
dilemmas — the expressions of unsophisticated aston- 
ishment which but prompt his stolid guide eagerly 
to make good every assertion by a proper array of 
authorities — a device which, as Pascal has used it, 
converts what would have been in other hands only 
a dull catalogue of citations, into a source of perpetual 
amusement — the droll consequences which, with in- 
finite affectation of simplicity, he draws from the 
Jesuit's doctrines — the logical exigencies into which 
the latter is thrown in the attempt to obviate them,— 
all these things, managed as only Pascal could have 
managed them, render the book as entertaining as 
any novel. The form of letters enables him at the 
same time to intersperse the most eloquent and glow- 
ing invectives against the doctrines he exposes."* 

This book of Pascal's is an acknowledged French 
classic. Voltaire declared it to be the first work of 
genius in French prose. Before Pascal the language 
had been heavy, involved, Latinized. Pascal " threw 



* Henry Rogers, author of " Eclipse of Faith." 



26S Sister and Saint. 

off the yoke " of Latinism, " and formed the clear, 
exact French." "As Corneille is the father and 
founder of French poetry, so is Pascal of French 
prose," says Cousin. And Voltaire again remarks 
that " Moliere does not excel these letters in wit, 
nor Bossuet in sublimity." 

A wonderful transparency is the chief character- 
istic of Pascal's style. "We see," says Faugere, 
" Thought herself arrayed in her own chaste nudity 
like an antique statue." 

His wit is as delicate as it is keen. " Probably no 
one ever knew so well when to stay his hand."* 

" The remarkable simplicity which characterizes 
Pascal's style is owing to the great labor he bestowed 
on his writings."f Nicole says that he often spent 
twenty days on a single letter, and some of them 
were written seven times over before they satisfied 
him. " This letter is a very long one," he once 
apologizes, " simply because I had not time to make 
it shorter." 

The second remarkable event which delayed the 
persecution was the wonderful cure ascribed to the 
agency of the Holy Thorn. 

Margaret Perier, from whose "Memoirs" of her 
uncle and aunt we have more than once quoted, was 
at this time a child of ten years, a member of the 

* Rogers. \ Villemain. 






The Masterpiece and the Miracle. 269 

school of Port Royal de Paris. She had been af- 
flicted for three years and a half with what was sup- 
posed to be fistula lachrymalis of the left eye. The 
bones of the nose were said to be diseased, and the 
whole case was a most malignant one, distressing 
even to read about. The physicians had made up 
their minds to cautery as a last resort, and M. Perier, 
who had been absent in Auvergne for a time, was 
hastening back to be present at the operation. 

Jacqueline tells the story of the cure in a letter to 
Madame Perier, dated March 29, 1656: 

" Last Friday, M. de la Potherie " (an assiduous 
collector of relics) "sent hither a very handsome 
reliquary to our Mothers, having within it a splinter 
from the sacred crown of thorns, set in a little sun of 
gilded silver, in order that the whole community 
might enjoy the sight. Before returning it, they had 
it placed on a little altar in the choir, and when an 
anthem had been chanted in its honor, each sister 
went up and kissed it on her knees, and so did the 
children, one by one. 

" Sister Flavie, their governess, made a sign to Mar- 
garet as she drew near, to touch her eye with the 
relic, and herself took it up and laid it on the spot, 
hardly thinking what she was doing. When all had 
retired, it was sent back to M. de la Potherie. 

" That same evening, Sister Flavie, who had forgot- 
ten the circumstance, heard Margaret say to one of 



2 ;o Sister and Saint. 

the little girls, ' My eye is cured ; it does not pain me 
at all now.' Not a little surprised, she went to the 
child, and found that the swelling in the corner of 
her eye, which in the morning was as thick as her 
finger-tip, and very long and hard, had quite gone 
down, and the eye itself appeared as healthy as the 
other, and looked precisely like it." 

The sisterhood proceeded with their usual calm- 
ness and good sense in the matter. Mother Agnes 

:gelique was at des Champs) was informed at once, 
and the next day she told Jacqueline Pascal. 

They then waited a week, saying nothing about it, 
and at the end of that time Jacqueline wrote to the 
child's mother: " It really needs far more faith for any 
one who did not see her in her former state to be- 
lieve that the eye was diseased than it does for those 
who did see her to believe the cure was produced by 
a miracle." 

The doctor came to see her now, and the child was 
brought to him without a word being said. He began 
to press, and probe, and examine. u Don't you re- 
member what a bad eye I had?" said the little girl. 

" That is just what I am trying to find," said the 
doctor, " but I see no traces of it." 

Thereupon Sister Flavie told him what had hap- 
pened. He asked if the cure was instantaneous. 
The child confirmed her statement that it was, upon 
which he said he was willing to declare upon oath 



The Masterpiece and the Miracle. 271 

that such a cure could not have taken place without 
a miracle. 

Waiting two weeks longer, seven physicians and 
surgeons examined the case and made a report to the 
same effect. 

M. Perier, in his great joy, spoke freely about the 
matter, and all Paris was soon ringing with the story. 
Anne of Austria was at first skeptical, but after send- 
ing M. Felix, the king's first surgeon, to make an 
examination, she was obliged to accept the universal 
verdict. Then the Grand Vicar of the Archbishop of 
Paris inquires, approves, and verifies, and the miracle 
is publicly sanctioned by the Church. 

The Provincial letters had convinced one class of 
minds. The miracle convinced another class. Port 
Royal all at once became fashionable again. The 
church was so crowded at the weekly Friday services 
that seats had to be secured months beforehand. The 
ladies of the court begged the privilege of making re- 
treats at both convents. There were almost daily 
conversions to Jansenism. The Queen of Poland, the 
Princess Guemenee, the Marquis de Sevigne, and a 
long list of dukes and duchesses were among those 
who frequently sought retirement in the cloisters, 
and, according to Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, " edified 
the world by an upright and godly conversation." 

The most remarkable conversion was that of the 
Duchesse de Longueville, sister of the great Conde. 



272 Sister and Saint. 

She seems to have become, indeed,- a changed wom- 
an, and the same is true of her brother and sister, the 
Prince and Princess of Conti. " Their houses, reti- 
nue, and equipage became marked with strict econ- 
omy. Their princely revenues were poured into the 
bosom of those whose fortune had been injured by 
the late civil war. They did not refuse to make the 
most humiliating and public acknowledgments of 
their guilt. Nor did they ever afterward spend more 
than was absolutely necessary on themselves ; till, 
after a lapse of many years, all the provinces injured 
by the war had been fully indemnified by their 
princely donations/' 

It is quite beyond the scope of this little book to 
discuss the miracle of the " Holy Thorn." Indeed, 
we think with Sir James Stephen that " time must 
be at some discount with any one who should em- 
ploy it in adjusting the balance of improbabilities " in 
this case. 

We know that, as Sainte-Beuve says, " it would have 
been impossible for either Blaise or Jacqueline Pascal 
to lend themselves to anything like deception, ,, and 
it is evident from their letters that they were both 
humble believers in the miracle. 

Neither could any of the Arnaulds have been 
parties to the deception, if deception there were, 
It was much against Angelique's taste to have the 
matter talked about, and she said that if she had 



The Masterpiece and the Miracle, 273 



prayed for a miracle she should have asked that one 
might be performed upon the soul rather than upon 
the body. 

After this great event, the bann of silence was re- 
moved from Jacqueline Pascal's muse, and by order 
of her superiors, she wrote a long poem in honor of 
the miracle. Cousin tries to find in it some echo of 
Corneille, but we are inclined to agree with Sainte- 
Beuve in thinking it " parfaitement detestable." In 
the awakening of nobler powers that little gift of 
versifying had been lost. 



12" 



SORROWFUL DAYS. 




XVIII. 



SORROWFUL DAYS. 



]T is pleasant to think of the next three or four 
years — years of peace and plenty— when the 
nuns returned to their unmolested worship, when 
the recluses gathered again at their beloved farm- 
house, and this whole little community of the Lord's 
faithful ones rejoiced in what seemed to them His 
visible smile and blessing, 

These were busy years for Jacqueline. She was 
promoted to the post of Sub-Prioress of Port Royal 
des Champs, and left Paris never to return. Her let- 
ters are few and brief, but cheerful. Whatever her 
attainments in self-mortification, it is impossible that 
she should not have fe.lt a noble pleasure in her 
brother's great success. The nuns were not allowed 
secular reading, but, for once, they had access to the 
choicest that French literature could give them, in 
chese " Provincial letters." Jacqueline refers to them 
once or twice, always in that tone of unsurprised and 

(277) 



278 Sister and Saint. 

assured calm which is so beautiful to see in the " sis- 
ters of genius." The world, to be sure, may be going 
mad over this remarkable performance, but they? — 
. they are not astonished — they have known all the 
time that their hearts' beloved could do this thing! 

Whatever complacency the author himself may 
have felt in his work so splendidly done, he was care- 
ful to check it at once, as he did every feeling of 
pleasure. Madame Perier tells us : " He wore an 
iron girdle lined with points, next his naked flesh, 
and whenever there came to him any feeling of satis- 
faction in having assisted or advised another, or when 
he took pleasure in the place where he was, or in any 
circumstance whatever, he gave himself a blow v/ith 
his elbow, to redouble the violence of the couFtant 
pain and make him remember his duty. Thi r , prac 
tice appeared to him so useful that he continued it 
through his increasing feebleness till the close of his 

life His great maxim was to renounce all 

pleasure and all superfluity, and he labored without 
ceasing {ox mortification." 

In February, 1660, Jacqueline writes a letter to her 
nieces, Margaret and Jacqueline Perier, who are both 
now at Port Royal de Paris. This is the only speci- 
men of her handwriting now extant — a "beautiful 
handwriting and orthography," Cousin tells us. 

"My very dear nieces," she begins, "y<yy have so 
much reason to complain of me that I ca A ^ not find 



Sorrowful Days. 279 

any excuse for myself. It will, therefore, be a shorter 
way to ask the forgiveness which I doubt not you 
will grant ; for if I were to bring forward some excuse 
that is not exactly true I should both injure myself 

and set you a very bad example I can assure 

you, my dear sisters, it seems to me as if I could for- 
get myself ere I forget you, and the less I testify my 
love, the more I feel it." 

We may judge of the busy life of the Sub-Prioress 
by this letter to her brother, of November, 1660: 

" Good-morning, and a happy New Year to you, 
my dearest brother. You will not doubt my having 
wished you this most cordially when the year began, 
though I could not tell you so till its close. I dare 
say you wonder at my mentioning it at all, but it is 
right you should know that my complete dedication 
of this year to God has not robbed you of anything 
you had reason to expect from me, for I have prayed 
for you continually. Oh, when I think how peace- 
fully this season of separation, which we naturally 
expected would prove so painful, has passed away, 
and how swiftly this year has fled, time seems of such 
small importance that I can not help longing for 
eternity. But I am not going on with so extensive a 
train of thought, which, indeed, I began unintention- 
ally/' .... After various salutations to friends, she 
concludes : " To yourself I say nothing ; you can 
judge of my love by your own^ and you know that I 



2 So Sister and Saint 

am entirely yours in Him who has united us more 
closely in the bonds of grace than in those of nature." 

Early in the year 1661, troubles once more thick- 
ened about Port Royal. 

Mazarin died, and what little influence Anne of 
Austria had, died with him. Louis XIV. had "placed 
his conscience in the hands of the Jesuits," and they, 
at once, saw their opportunity and seized it. The 
" Five Propositions" were once more marshalled out, 
— "those celebrated propositions which are in the 
'Augustinus' but nobody has ever seen," as Pascal 
said, and which, according to another gentleman who 
read the whole book carefully through to find them, 
" were there incognito if they were there at all." A 
"New Formulary" was drawn up, running (in part) 
as follows : 

" I condemn, from my heart and with my mouth, 
the doctrine of the five propositions of Cornelius 
Jansenius, which are contained in the book entitled 
1 Augustinus/ which both Pope Innocent X. and 
Pope Alexander VII. have condemned." 

Not only ecclesiastics, but all the nuns and school- 
masters were required, under very severe penalties, to 
sign this paper. No exception was made in favor of 
those who had never seen the "Augustinus" or who 
could not read Latin ! 

It was, of course, impossible for the Port Royalists 
to sign such a paper. 






Sorrowful Days. 281 

" Persecution/' says Tregelles, " now began in 
earnest. The dungeons of the Bastile were crowded 
with those who refused to violate their consciences by- 
subscribing what they did not believe. The very 
passages of the prison were occupied with prisoners. 

" M. de Saci, the nephew of the Mere Angelique, 
carried on during his imprisonment his well-known 
version of the Holy Scriptures. Henri Arnauld, 
Bishop of Anjou, and three other bishops, refused to 
accept the formulary, let the consequences be what 
they might. But it was upon Port Royal itself that 
the principal fury of the tempest discharged itself." 

In April, 1661, there came an order that all the 
pupils in the two convents should be sent back to 
their homes w T ithin three days. And the spring and 
summer following are crow T ded full of sorrow. 

The Mere Angelique was now old and suffering 
from the disease of which she soon died. But the 
day before that fixed upon for the dispersion, she said 
good-bye forever to her beloved valley of Chevreuse, 
and was carried on a litter to the Paris house. 

" On her arrival she found the street thronged by 
an immense concourse of people, the gates of the 
convent closely guarded by sentinels, and the courts 
full of armed police ; she was carried into the house 
between files of archers. She found the whole com- 
munity in tears and lamentations. ,, There were 
thirty-three boarders in the Paris house, not including, 



2S2 Sister and Saint. 

of course, the novices, candidates, and nuns. Many 
of these young pupils were orphans, and knew no 
other home than the convent, and when the time 
came for them to go, their sobs and cries resounded 
through the house. It was equally hard for the nuns 
to know that they were to see these children no more, 
" for they were tenderly attached to them." 

"The mournful scene was prolonged eight days, 
for some of the parents lived in the country and could 
not reach Paris sooner." The children would throw 
themselves in a crowd upon the nun who had charge 
of them, " weeping and holding fast by her dress." 
Some of them entreated to be received at once as 
novices that they might stay, and others begged to 
be made lay-sisters, as the servants were not ordered 
away. But in a few days there came another order 
to expel every candidate and novice. Many touching 
and thrilling scenes are given us in the " Memoires." 

Angelique and Agnes were true mothers to their 
whole flock in these days of trial. They inspired, 
comforted, advised, wept and prayed with their chil- 
dren, as it is given to mothers to do at such times. 
Agnes wrote a very beautiful letter to the King in 
regard to certain novices, whose cases we need not 
detail here. " The king praised the letter," we are 
told, but paid no heed to its humble request. 

Angelique, from her bed of death, also wrote an 
appeal to Anne of Austria. But all was useless. In 



Sorrowful Days. 283 

the course of a few days seventy-five young girls were 
removed from Port Royal de Paris, and nearly as 
many about the same time left the other house. Jac- 
queline's two nieces, the Periers, were sent home to 
their mother, who was then living in Paris. Their 
aunt wrote to them in June — a letter full of consola- 
tion and of warning. She advises them to retire as 
much as possible from society. " I do not mean you 
to be discourteous/' she explains, " nor to seclude 
yourselves entirely, but to seek retirement when not 
actually obliged to mingle with society, and when you 
are to snatch a few moments frequently for lifting 
your hearts to God!' 

The scholars, novices, and candidates were -gone 
from both houses. The large, plain rooms were empty 
and desolate, and the busy Sub-Prioress, doubtless, 
had time now to sit down quietly to write and think. 
And now comes the Grand Vicar of the Archbishop 
of Paris, to go through both convents and question 
each nun in turn as to her belief. Jacqueline's ac- 
count of her own examination is published in the 
" History of the Persecutions of the Port Royalist 
Nuns." She is very modest and humble — a true 
daughter of the Church — yet we catch an inkling now 
and then of the same quick wit and clear reason which, 
in her brother's brain, involved the worthy Father of 
the "Letters" in so many " logical exigencies." 

" I am not accustomed to dive into matters uncon- 



2 84 Sister and Saint. 

nected with duty," she answers to one question, but 
when pressed for her opinion, she gave it simply and 
clearly. 

At another ready answer, " he smiled a little." Once 
he asked her, " How comes it that so many persons 
are lost eternally?" "I confess to you, sir," she re- 
plies, " this thought often troubles me when I am 
praying, and I can not help saying sometimes, * O my 
Lord ! how can it be, after all Thou hast done for us, 
that so many souls should perish miserably V But 
when these thoughts come, I repress them, not daring 
to pry into the secrets of God, and I find satisfaction 
in praying for sinners." 

The Grand Vicar answered, "That is quite right, 
my daughter." 

When he asked if she had taught the novices cer- 
tain doctrines, she said: "As I avoid puzzling myself 
with these topics, it is not likely that I should seek 
to puzzle them. On the contrary, I have tried to 
have them as simple-minded as possible." 

At the end of the conference the examiner said : 
" You are right, and God be praised for it. I believe 
you are speaking to me in all sincerity. Send me 
another sister." 

And yet, after all these things, the nuns would not 
sign that little formulary. " Pure as angels and proud 
as devils ! " exclaimed the angry archbishop. They 
would not sign ! 



Sorrowful Days. 285 

How could they? How could they declare that 
certain things were contained in a book they never 
had read and never could read? They did not believe 
them to be there. They loved the truth, and " they 
clung desperately" and heroically to " the one shred 
and particle of truth they had discovered. "** That one 
particle of truth was enough to make them free — free 
from blind obedience to a corrupt Church, and free 
from fear of their adversaries. 

As the Grand Vicar completed his examination at 
Port Royal de Paris (in July), he passed through the 
room where the Mere Angelique lay very near her 
end. "How do you feel, Reverend Mother?" asked 
the ecclesiastic. 

" Like a person who is dying," she answered, tran- 
quilly. 

" Do you speak of death so calmly ? " said he. " Does 
death not alarm you ? " 

" No," answered she. " I am incomparably more 
alarmed at what I now see taking place in this house.'* 
Then, rousing herself and speaking with all her old 
energy, she added : " Oh, sir, sir, this is man's day ; 
but the day of the Lord is coming, and that will ex- 
plain all, and avenge all ! " 

A few weeks later, in the midst of the storm of per- 
secution, the good mother passed quietly to her rest. 
Many were her expressions of love to her dear daugh- 
ters during those last days, but "Jesus — Jesus, my 



2S6 Sister and Saint. 



Lord, my righteousness, my strength, my all ! " were 
the last words upon her lips. 

And still the nuns would not sign ! The court- 
yard of the Paris house was full of mounted police 
and archers, and masons and carpenters were busy 
walling up the very gates of the monastery, and thus 
rendering their home their prison. Pere Singlin, 
de Saci, and all their confessors were in concealment, 
and both houses were deprived of all religious guides, 
except the Jesuits. Still, they would not sign ! 

In this extremity some of their best friends be- 
thought themselves of a compromise. A treaty with 
the archbishop was opened, for the purpose of obtain- 
ing a modified declaration (mandement), to which 
these women might be willing to subscribe their 
names. The scattered leaders met, with much risk 
and difficulty, in Pascal's room to talk the matter 
over. Some of the meetings were rather stormy. 
Arnauld and Nicole were in favor of a signature of 
this modified formula. Pascal was confined to his bed 
with the illness from which he never rallied, but his 
mind roused itself to its full strength to consider this 
question which came so near him. He was in favor 
of " standing by God's truth at all hazards, even if it 
involved disobedience to the pope." Arnauld ably 
argued the wisdom of trying to make duty to the 
Church consistent with the truth, and skillfully rep- 
resented the helpless condition of these nuns. 



Sorrowful Days. 287 

Pascal was stubborn " in his unconscious Protest- 
antism." Duty to the Church could not, in this case, 
be made consistent with the truth. " No, no," again 
and again he cried, " you can never save Port Royal, 
but you can be traitors to the truth ! " 

At the last conference the majority of those pres- 
ent, yielding to Arnauld and Nicole, voted for the 
compromise* " Seeing which, M. Pascal, who loved 
truth more than anything else, and who, in spite of 
his weakness, had spoken with great earnestness in 
order to impress his convictions upon the others, was 
so overcome with grief that he fainted, entirely losing 
voice and consciousness." When he had recovered 
himself, and all had gone away except the Duke of 
Roannez and another intimate friend, " Madame 
Perier asked him what had occasioned the swoon. 
He replied, l When I beheld so many persons to whom 
God has made known His truth, and who ought to 
be its defenders, thus giving way f I could not bear 
it/ " 

And how was it with Jacqueline? How was that 
twin-soul of Blaise Pascal's settling this question ? 

In the quiet of Port Royal des Cliamps, beneath 
the solemn hills, with no knowledge of what was 
passing in her brother's room in Paris, she thought 
the problem out and came to her own conclusion. 
" Strange to say," says Cousin, " though not aware of 
the meetings at Paris, Jacqueline used the same 



2SS Sister and Saint. 

arguments and even, in some cases, the very same 
words that Pascal had done." She could not under- 
stand, any more than he, how men claiming to be the 
defenders of the truth, could even seem to abandon 
it on any consideration of expediency. " Brought 
face to face with danger, her intrepid heart broke 
forth in proud yet pathetic strains, reminding us of 
some of the finest passages of the ' Provincial Let- 
ters/ " 

The advice of the leaders was formally signified to 
the nuns. It was that they should sign this modified 
document, " with a distinct exception in favor of 
Jansen's meaning." Not only did Arnauld urge this 
step, but Father Singlin, from his place of conceal- 
ment, wrote them a letter advising the same. It is 
doubtful whether Jacqueline ever knew her brothers 
position in the matter. 

But before she would yield, this heroic woman 
made one more effort. Cousin says : " We ask of 
all who yet retain any sympathy with energy of charac- 
ter and with the beauty of an unselfish love for truth, 
if they have ever met with many pages of greater 
sublimity and strength than are found in Jacqueline 
Pascal's ' Letter on signing the formulary ' ? " 

This letter is worthy, in every way, of Pascal's sis- 
ter. " It is an echo of his own manly and heart- 
stirring tone." 

" I am convinced," she boldly declares, " that in 



Sorrowful Days. 289 

this course there is safety neither for body nor soul. 
Truth is the only real Liberator. ,, 

"What are we afraid of ?" again she cries. " Ban- 
ishment and dispersion, the seizure of property, 
prison, death, if you will — but are not these things 
our glory? Let us either give up the Gospel or carry 
out its principles and be happy in suffering for the 
truth." 

Satire does not fail her. " I admire the ingenuity 
of the human mind, as displayed in the perfection 
with which the i Mandement * is drawn up." 

" I know very well that the defense of the truth is 
not women's business. But perhaps when bishops 
have the cowardice of women, women ought to have 
the boldness of bishops." 

And, at last, in the note to Arnauld in which she 
incloses the letter, the whole noble, womanly heart 
comes out as she concludes : " Forgive me, my dear 
Father, and do not imagine that though I seem cour- 
ageous, nature does not dread the consequences. 
But I trust that grace will support me." 

The Prioress of Port Royal des Champs, a much 
older woman than Jacqueline, shared the scruples of 
her subordinate, and did not hesitate to tell Arnauld 
that she did so. " And that great man," says Cousin, 
" instead of being irritated, did his best to answer 
their objections in a long letter, which unfortunately 
has been lost." 
J 3 



290 Sister and Saint. 

At length, a last communication from Arnauld — 
Jacqueline calls it " a note of command " — was sent 
to them, and, one sad day, the nuns in solemn proces- 
sion signed the modified formulary. Trained to obe- 
dience, influenced most of all by the direction of 
their own spiritual Father, Singlin, they put their 
names to the hated paper. 

All of them made the " distinct exceptions " sug- 
gested by Arnauld. Jacqueline and her sympathiz- 
ing friend, the prioress, added to these "a strong 
protest in order to clear their consciences in some 
degree." Yet, notwithstanding this, remorse and 
grief so overcame these noble women that, the next 
day, both of them were taken seriously ill. For 
nearly three months they lingered. Doubtless the 
autumn chill and dampness of the valley had some- 
thing to do with their condition. But Jacqueline 
said of herself that she was " a victim of the formu- 
lary." " I speak in the agony of a grief which I feel 
certain will kill me" she had said in her " Letter on 
the Formulary," and the clear-headed, conscience- 
searching nun was not given to exaggeration. " It 
was the woman, not the Christian which sank," says 
Vinet, "overwhelmed by the weight of her own 
courage." 

The prioress, with much difficulty was restored to 
health. Jacqueline never rallied. On her birthday — 
October 4, 1661, just thirty-three years old — she died. 



Sorrowful Days. 291 

We have no details of her last days. We only- 
know that neither brother nor sister were with her, 
that the Mere Angelique was dead and Agnes very 
feeble and imprisoned at Paris, that she was denied 
the presence of her beloved Father Singlin. But the 
Lord remembereth His own, and, doubtless, she was 
ministered unto according to her need. 

" Her life/' says Vinet, " is the life gf an energetic 
woman ; her death — that of a woman. She died of 
grief, because, under the guidance of the great 
Arnauld, and of the distinguished leaders of Port 
Royal, she had consented to a transaction deemed 
proper by them all, but in which the exquisite deli- 
cacy of her moral sense detected a slight evasion." 



THOSE LEFT BEHIND. 



XIX. 



THOSE LEFT BEHIND. 



THERE was fresh sorrow in the convent now, 
for " Sceur de Sainte-Euphemie " was greatly- 
beloved. A touching and beautiful letter was 
written by the abbess to Pascal, informing him of 
their common loss. 

D'Andilly's daughter, Angelique de St. Jean, a 
very lovely and talented woman, just Jacqueline 
Pascal's age, wrote to Madame Perier. Her letter is 
rather an outcry of sisterly grief than an attempt at 
consolation. 

Good, quiet, unpretending M. Perier came from 
Paris, hoping to find his sister-in-law still alive. " He 
seems so grieved,'* writes Angelique. " I pity him 
for the sad news I have not yet dared communicate. 
The Duke of Roannez is also here. I am very glad 
of that ; yet earthly consolation is little worth. Alas ! 
how much I had hoped for, in all our present and 

(295) 



296 Sister and Saint. 

future trials, from her whom God has taken away, 
lest we should lean on her too much." 

Father Singlin wrote a tender epistle to his daugh- 
ters in the Lord, holding up for their imitation the 
virtues of their beloved sister. In the annals of the 
convent, Jacqueline is spoken of as, in all respects, 
" a perfect nun — one whose eminent piety equaled 
the nobility of her intellect. ,, 

The brother and sister were, in death, not long 
divided. In August, 1662, Blaise Pascal died. His 
last months were an accumulation of sufferings — dis- 
ease, penances, and griefs. 

His only remark on hearing of Jacqueline's death 
was, " God give us grace to die as well." " Yet," 
says Madame Perier simply, " she was assuredly the 
person whom he loved best in all the world." He 
endured all trials with a beautiful patience. He was 
ashamed, he said, of having so much kindness and at- 
tention lavished upon him, while so many of Christ's 
poor had not where to lay their heads. 

While the body wore away, the active mind was 
reaching farther and farther out into its own bound- 
less realm. 

In these last years were written those " Pens6es " 
which will live even longer than the "Provincial 
Letters." They were jotted down on bits of paper 
and pinned together without classification. "Frag- 
mentary, but grand — they are like some temple 



Those Left Behind. 297 

portico in the sands of Egypt, ruined before finished, 
but whose glory will never pass away. "* They were 
intended as parts of a great work on the evidences of 
the Christian religion, the general plan of which he 
once sketched in conversation with the Duke of 
Roannez and other friends. 

Once Pascal returned, for a brief season, to mathe- 
matical studies. In the course of a few sleepless 
nights, caused by the agony of tooth-ache, he thought 
out, merely for the sake of distraction from the pain, 
a system which came within one step of being the 
" Differential and Integral Calculus/' Tulloch says 
that if he had pursued this train of thought "it may 
confidently be presumed that he would have antici- 
pated Leibnitz and Newton in the glory of their great 
invention." As it was, Pascal's discovery brought 
him great honors from all the mathematical circles of 
Europe. 

And who first thought of the dray, the wheel- 
barrow, the omnibus ? — who but this " miracle of 
universal genius " ? Sainte-Beuve says : " It seems as 
if every object he looked at gave him a new idea, 
often a very practical one." 

It is almost a relief to have the intimation of a fault 
in the midst of the many virtues all Pascal's biogra- 
phers have presented to us. His sister says: "The 



* Villemain. 

13* 



29S Sister and Saint. 

extreme vivacity of his mind made him sometimes so 
impatient that it was hard to satisfy him ; yet as soon 
as he perceived that he had grieved any one by his 
impatience, he made up for it at once {incontinent) by 
behavior so sweet and by so many kindnesses that he 
never lost the love of any one by this fault." We 
may be sure every word of this is true. The beauty 
of Madame Perier's "Memoirs" is their moderate 
tone. Their repressions are more eloquent than any 
panegyrics. This very fault of impatience brings out 
an offsetting virtue — humility. " I have always ad- 
mired the many great points of this man," said an 
ecclesiastic who visited him shortly before his death, 
"but I never knew before the grandness of his sim- 
plicity. He is a child" 

When the end was near, Pascal insisted on leaving 
his own house to die at his sister's, because he had 
taken into his own house a family, one of whom was 
ill of varioloid, and he would not expose his sister to 
the risk of coming there.* " He was almost incon- 
solable " that they would not let him go to a hospital 
"to die among the poor," and he begged his sister to 
take into her house some poor sick person who should 
receive the same attentions as himself. This would 



* Madame Perier's residence at that time was No. 8 Rue Neuve 
Saint-Etienne. Entering the court, at the right of the porte cochhre, 
you find a little isolated pavilion. There, in a room which has two 
grated windows opening on the street, Pascal died. 



Those Left Behind. 299 

have been done if they had succeeded in finding a 
patient in condition to be moved. 

He continued his austerities to the last, and " re- 
strained, even in his dying hours, expressions of ten- 
derness toward those whom he loved. ,, 

" Mistaken — misled by a pernicious asceticism. " 
Most truly so, we think. Yet, some men's mistakes 
are better than other men's wisdom. 

That patient elder sister, Gilberte, had, indeed, 
many griefs to bear. Ten years after her brother, her 
husband died, and she was then plunged into a sea of 
pecuniary troubles. Two of her sons died not long 
afterward. In 1687, at the age of sixty-eight, she 
herself went to her rest. She was buried in the 
church of Saint-Etienne du Mont, by her brother's 
side. Both tombstones may be seen there to-day. 

Margaret Perier, the heroine of the miracle, lived 
to be eighty-seven years old. She did the world good 
service by collecting the papers of her celebrated 
uncle and aunt and writing the memoirs of her family. 
" All my relatives and brethren have died in God's 
service and in the love of His truth," she says at the 
close of those " Memoirs." " I am left alone. God 
forbid that I should ever think of renouncing either! " 
That she did not renounce either is shown by the fol- 
lowing memoranda made by some friend after her 
death : 

"Mad elle Perier made, at different times, long 



300 Sister and Saint. 

sojourns in Paris, where she was the admiration of 
literary and the consolation of religious people. She 
had many acquaintances and a great number of 

friends of both sexes She left Paris altogether 

in 1695, after the death of her sister, and went to live 
with her brother, then dean of St. Peter's (at Cler- 
mont). At first she remained at Bienassis, which is 
the most beautiful country-seat in the environs of 
Clermont, but she would never allow the smallest 
party of pleasure to assemble there. 

" She had a carriage in which to ride in and out of 
town, but, after a while, gave up both house and 
equipage, and finding that the Great Hospital was in 
want of a superintendent, offered her own services to 
the directors. They were accepted, and she separated 
herself from her brother in order to live at the hospi- 
tal, where, however, her health, which was much im- 
paired, did not permit her to make a long stay. Her 
brother was now canon of the cathedral. They 
bought a house in its neighborhood, and they lived 
there in a very simple manner. She remained there 
after his death. 

" Mad elle Perier was always dressed in blacky of the 
commonest material. Her furniture was perfectly 
plain. Her only domestics were a valet, who took 
care of the country property, and two or three maids, 
who, like their mistress, lived a religious life. They 
did not wear veils, but little white hoods. One of 



Those Left Behind. 301 

them, who survived her, had been in her service fifty 
years. 

" Some years before her death, Mad elle Perier lost 
the use of her limbs, and this compelled her to re- 
main within doors except on festival days and Sun- 
days, when she was carried to the cathedral in a chair. 
She passed most of her days on a couch, and occu- 
pied herself with prayer and reading. Her visitors 
were always charmed with her conversation. Her 
mind and memory, which was excellent, endured to 
the very last. By her will she made the poor, in the 
General Hospital of Clermont, her legatees." 

-You do not wish to lay down the book till we have 
taken a final glance at Port Royal ? 

Pascal was right. No compromises would avail. 
They could not save Port RoyaL It was not the sign- 
ing of a paper that the Jesuits wanted. It was the 
giving up of a principle, and these women would not 
give that up. " You refuse to yield your consciences 
to your superiors. What signifies it that you are 
holy and virtuous ? " said the archbishop when he 
came " in full pontificals, with a terrible countenance," 
to inspect Port Royal de Paris. " He forbade them 
to approach the altar as wholly unworthy, contuma- 
cious, and mutinous," and he warned them to expect 
his return at an early day, " to denounce a signal pun- 
ishment which should make them tremble." 

He kept his promise. A rumor (all too true) 



302 Sister and Saint. 

reached them one night that the abbess and "all the 
principal officers and nuns" were to be imprisoned in 
separate prisons or in Jesuit convents. 

The next morning " the great gates of the monas- 
tery being opened, the archbishop's state-coach, with 
others containing his officers, silver-cross bearers, and 
ecclesiastics, and eight empty coaches, with twenty con- 
stables with staves, and eighty soldiers fully armed, 
entered and arranged themselves around the court, 
with loaded fire-arms and fixed bayonets." 

" Oh, ma Mere,' whispered one of the nuns to 
Mother Agnes, "is it possible that we, such unworthy 
disciples, should be sent for with a 'band of men with 
swords, and staves, and chief priests/ just like the 
Lord himself ? " 

" Guards were placed at the doors ; and the arch- 
bishop alighted from his coach in full state, with his 
great silver gilt cross borne before him, his mitre on 
his head, and his train borne by numerous ecclesias- 
tics. 

"As he alighted, M. d'Andilly, bareheaded, his hair 
white as silver, threw himself at the archbishop's feet. 
He had in that monastery six daughters and had had 
as many sisters, two of whom yet lived. And in the 
grave-yard of that monastery were the remains of his 
mother and his grandmother, both of whom had died 
exemplary nuns of Port Royal, and one of whom had 
bestowed on it that very house. He uttered not a 



Those Left Behind. 303 

word, but tears betrayed what he felt on seeing the 
hour come when they were, for their constancy in the 
truth, to be torn from that very house their munifi- 
cence had bestowed ; and to be immured separately 
in prisons, destitute of everything." 

The threat was fully carried out. The M&re Agnes 
was imprisoned, the last sacraments were refused 
her when she was believed to be dying, and she 
was threatened that her dead body should be thrown 
out unburied. But she recovered, and, after ten 
months, was sent back to Port Royal des Champs, 
where she died at the age of seventy-eight. 

Very thrilling are many of the stories of these 
days given us in the "Lives of the Nuns of Port 
Royal/ ' Gertrude de Valois is one of the noblest 
instances of patient suffering for righteousness* sake. 
Wealth and honor she gladly left behind, and chose 
imprisonment, torture, want, even to the verge of 
starvation, for her earthly portion. She was threat- 
ened with burial in unconsecrated ground if she re- 
fused, to the last, compliance with the demands of 
her persecutors. "Sire," she answered undauntedly 
to the archbishop, " I do not think you can bury me 
in a spot where my Lord can not find me and raise 
me up again at the last day." 

Port Royal des Champs was deprived, like its sister 
community, of its officers and principal nuns, and, 
after going through a few brief attempts at "pacifica- 



304 Sister and Saint. 

lion," through the influence of the Duchesse de Lon- 
gueville, was left, apparently, to die out. Various 
schemes were proposed by friends of the nuns. At 
one time the Duke of Roannez offered to buy an 
island in the St. Lawrence for them and bear the ex- 
pense of their removal to America. Should we ever 
have known or guessed their virtues if they had come 
thus to our doors? 

Fifty years after Angelique's death, we are told, 
there were still twenty-two nuns left at Port Royal 
des Champs. " They were old and feeble women ; 
bedridden, paralytic, dying." They had lived many 
years shut up in the convent, without confessor, with- 
out priest, without sacraments. 

Madame de Maintenon made sport of these old 
women, and urged by her and his Jesuit priests, le 
grand monarque, Louis Fourteenth, decided to dis- 
perse them, and forever blot out Port Royal. 

In 1709, an officer with three hundred soldiers ap- 
peared in the quiet, almost deserted valley. He 
seated himself on the throne of the abbess and ordered 
the trembling, but stout-hearted old ladies to be ready 
within ten minutes to leave their home. They were 
to be exiled one by one to different convents. The 
prioress, with respectful dignity, asked if they might 
not be allowed to go two by two, as many of them 
were too infirm to be without attendants. This was 
refused. Most of them were between seventy and 



Those Left Behind. 305 

eighty years old; the eldest was eighty-six, the 
youngest over fifty. " Some died on their journey ; 
others as soon as they reached their destination/' 
They were imprisoned in cells without light or fire ; 
they were deprived of sacraments, and, in some cases, 
their dying hands were guided to sign that hated, un- 
modified " Formulary/' which no persecution had 
been able to make them sign. 

Was not this enough ? No. The convent itself, 
the farm-house of the recluses, the church, and the 
grave-yard must suffer. The buildings were razed, 
one after another, to their foundations. Then " a 
band of workmen, prepared for their task by drink, 
broke open the graves of recluses and nuns, tore the 
bodies from the graves, threw them together in heaps, 
and allowed the dogs to feed on them. The remains 
were heaped up in carts and conveyed to a large pit, 
into which they were cast." 

Thus was this heresy crushed out ! Thus ended, to 
human view, the lives and efforts of some of the most 
gifted as well as the holiest children of the Catholic 
Church of the seventeenth century. Thus did this 
diseased and weakening body cut off its healthiest 
member ! 

But exiled from that church's altars, denied the 
consolations of her sacraments, condemned to die in 
that spiritual penury which was to them so much 
worse than any other want, these fainting souls found, 



306 Sister and Saint. 

we believe, at last, that righteousness for which they 
hungered. They found it in no earthly temples, but 
in that Church above where creeds are lost in Truth. 
They sowed in tears ; they doubtless reap in joy. 
Nor can such seed be without a harvest for us in 
these ends of the world. Such lives can not have 
been lived in vain. Such characters are an immortal 
force for good. Jacqueline Pascal, from her far-off, 
dishonored grave, still speaks to us a lesson of cour- 
age, fidelity, and faith. 



FRAGMENTS GATHERED UP. 



XX. 



FRAGMENTS GATHERED UP. 



THERE maybe readers who will like to sup* 
plement our story with a few further illustra- 
tions of its characters. 
For such, these fragments have been gathered, and 
let them feel assured that there is much more of 
equal interest in the great mass from which these are 
taken. 

I. 

In the history of certain races there may occur an 
illustrious moment, a unique moment, in which the 
type of that race, after long elaboration, attains its 
distinct degree of energy and perfection, sets its dis- 
tinct and deep imprint on two or three medals, and 
then is broken forever. It was so in the case of Blaise 
and Jacqueline* Pascal — two precious vases, shattered 
by the mighty workings of truth, genius, and feeling 
within them. — Vinet. 

(309) 



3io Sister and Saint. 

ii. 
We experience a feeling of more thorough and re- 
spectful admiration for her than for him. We doubt 
whether we have ever met with a character, male or 
even female, which surpassed Jacqueline's. Had she 
been a woman endowed with one of those peaceful 
and innately submissive natures to which the convic- 
tion of submission brings repose, we should not say 
this. But the history of Pascal's sister displays a 
struggle and a victory of the most arduous kind, and 
yet complete in its results. — Vinet* 

III. 

The life of Pascal is worth a hundred sermons, and 
his acts of humility and self-abasement will do more 
toward checking the libertinism of the age than doz- 
ens of missionaries. — Bayle. 

IV. 

pascal's confession of faith. 

(Found in his handwriting after his death). 

I love poverty because Jesus Christ loved it. I love 

property because it affords the means of assisting the 

wretched. I keep faith with all. I do not render evil 

to those who injure me ; but I wish them a condition 

like mine, in which neither evil nor good is received 

on the part of man. I try to be just, true, sincere, 

and faithful to all men ; and I have a tenderness of 



Fragments Gathered Up. 311 

heart for those with whom God has closely united 
me ; and whether I am alone or in the sight of man, 
I perform all my actions as in the sight of God, who 
is to judge them and to whom I have devoted them 
all 

These are my convictions ; and I bless every day 
of my life my Redeemer who has inspired me with 
them, and who of a man full of weakness, wretched- 
ness, concupiscence, pride, and ambition has made 
a man exempt from these evils by the force of His 
grace, to which all the glory is due, for in myself are 
only wretchedness and error. 

V. 
(On the evidences of Christianity). 
There is light enough for those whose .sincere wish 
is to see, and darkness enough to confound those of 
an opposite disposition.— Thoughts. 

VI. 
I lay it down as a fact, that if all men knew what 
they say of one another, there would not be four 
friends in the world. This appears by the quarrels 
which are sometimes caused by indiscreet reports. — 
Thoughts. 

VII. 

Certain authors, speaking of their works, say, " My 
book, my commentary, my history." It were better 



312 Sister and Saint. 

to say, " Our book, our history, our commentary ; " 
for generally there is more in it belonging to others 
than to themselves. — Thoughts. 



VIII. 

Curiosity is but vanity. Often we wish to know 
more, only that we may talk about it. People would 
never traverse the sea if they were never to speak of 
it ; for the mere pleasure of seeing, without the hope 
of ever telling what they have seen. — Thoughts. 

IX. 

What advantage is it to us to hear a man saying 
that he has thrown off the yoke ; that he does not 
think there is any God who watches over his actions; 
that he considers himself as the sole judge of his con- 
duct, and that he is accountable to none but himself ? 
Does he imagine that we shall hereafter repose special 
confidence in him, and expect from him consolation, 
advice, succor, in the exigencies of life ? Do such 
men imagine that it is any matter of delight to us to 
hear that they hold the soul to be but a little vapor 
or smoke, and that they can tell us this in an assured 
and self-sufficient tone of voice? Is this, then, a 
thing to be said with gayety ? Is it not rather a 
thing to be said with tears, as the saddest thing in 
the world ? — Thoughts. 



Fragments Gathered Up. 313 

x. 

The style of the Gospels is admirable in many re- 
spects, and, amongst others, in this — that there is not 
a single invective against the murderers and enemies 
of Jesus Christ. — Thoughts. 

XL 

The heart has its reasons, which reason can not 

understand It is the heart which is sensible 

of God and not the reason. This, then, is faith : God 
sensible to the heart. — Thoughts. 

XII. 
Discontent is caused by the knowledge of the 
vanity of present pleasures and the ignorance of the 
vanity of absent pleasures. — Thoughts. 

XIII. 

" Devotion made Easy." From the ninth Provincial 
Letter. 

(Louis de MontaUe, the supposed writer, meets the 
worthy Jesuit father). 

The moment he perceived me, he came forward 
with his eyes fixed on a book which he held in his 
hand, and accosted me thus : 

" ' Would you not be infinitely obliged to any one 
who should open to you the gates of Paradise ? 
14 



314 Sister and Saint. 

Would you not give millions of gold to have a key 
by which you might gain admittance whenever you 
thought proper? You need not be at such expense. 
Here is one — here are a hundred for much less 
money/ " 

At first I was at a loss to know whether the good 
father was reading or talking to me ; but he soon put 
the matter beyond doubt by adding : 

" These, sir, are the opening words of a fine book 
written by Father Barry of our Society." 

" What book is it ? " asked I. 

" Here is its title," he replied : " l Paradise opened 
to Philagio in a Hundred Devotions to the Mother 
of God, easily practiced/ " 

" Indeed, father ! And is each of these easy devo- 
tions a sufficient passport to heaven ? " 

" It is," returned he. " Listen to what follows : 
' The devotions which you will find in this book are 
so many celestial keys which will open to you the 
gates of Paradise if you will practice them.' ,: 

" Pray, then, father, do teach me one of the easiest 
of them." 

" They are all easy," he replied ; " for example, 
' Saluting her when you meet her image — fervently 
pronouncing the name of Mary — commissioning the 
angels to bow r to her for us — .... the last pos- 
sessing the additional virtue of securing us the heart 
of the Virgin.' " 



Fragments Gathered Up. 315 

" But, father," said I, " only provided we give het 
our own in return, I presume ? " 

" That," he replied, " is not absolutely necessary, 
when a person is extremely attached to the world." 

" Why, this is extremely easy work," said I ; " and 
I should really think that nobody will be damned 
after that." 

" Alas ! " said the monk, " I see you have no idea 
of the hardness of some people's hearts. There are 
some who would never engage to repeat every day 

even these simple words And accordingly it 

became necessary for Father Barry to provide them 
with expedients still easier, such as wearing a chaplet 
night and day on the arm, in the form of a bracelet, 
or carrying about one's person a rosary, or an image 
of the Virgin." .... 

" My dear sir," I observed, " I am fully aware that 
devotions to the Virgin are a powerful means of sal- 
vation, and that the least of them, if flowing from 
the exercise of faith and charity, as in the case of 
the saints who have practiced them, are of great 
merit ; but to make persons believe that by practic- 
ing these without reforming their wicked lives, they 
will be converted by them at the hour of death, 
does appear calculated rather to keep sinners going 
on in their evil courses, by deluding them with false 



3 



1 6 Sister and Saint. 



peace and foolhardy confidence, than to draw them 
off from sin by genuine conversion. " 

11 What does it matter," replied the monk, " by 
what road we enter Paradise, provided we do enter 
it?" (He quotes another Jesuit writer to the same 
effect). 

" Granted," said I ; " but the great question is if 
we will get there at all." 

" The Virgin will be answerable for that," returned 
he. " So says Father Barry." .... 

" But, father, it might be possible to puzzle you, 
were one disposed to push the question a little farther. 
Who, for example, has assured us that the Virgin 
will be answerable in this case ? " 

" Father Barry will be answerable for her," he re- 
plied (quoting) T 

" But, father, who is to be answerable for Father 
Barry?" 

" How ! " cried the monk; "for Father Barry? 
Is he not a member of our Society ? " 

XIV. 

(In defense of the nuns of Port Royal. Sixteenth 

Provincial Letter.) 

Cruel, cowardly persecutors ! Can, then, the most 
retired cloisters afford no retreat from your calumnies? 
You publicly cut off from the Church these conse- 



Fragments Gathered Up. 317 

crated virgins, while they are praying in secret foi 
you and for the whole Church. You calumniate 
those who have no ears to hear you, no mouth tc 
reply to you. But Jesus Christ, in whom they are 
now hidden, not to appear till one day together with 
Him, hears you and answers for them. 

XV. 

Violence and Verity. Twelfth Provincial Letter.) 

It is a strange and tedious war when violence at- 
tempts to vanquish truth. All the efforts of violence 
can not weaken truth, and only serve to give it fresh 
vigor. All the lights of truth can not arrest violence, 
and only serve to exasperate it. When force meets 
force, the weaker must succumb to the stronger. 
When argument is opposed to argument, the solid 
and the convincing triumphs over the empty and the 
false. But violence and verity can make no impres- 
sion on each other. 

Let none suppose, however, that the two are there- 
fore equal to each other ; for there is this vast differ- 
ence between them, that violence has only a certain 
course to run, limited by the appointment of heaven, 
which overrules its effects to the glory of the truth 
which it assails ; whereas verity endures forever, and 
eventually triumphs over its enemies, being eternal 
and almighty as God himself. 



3 iS Sister and Saint. 



XVI. 

Jacqueline s Letter on the Formulary. 

(She had deemed it her especial duty to mortify 
her noble intellect, but she was unable to destroy it ; 
it still clung to her ; and though everything which 
she achieved or wrote bears the stamp of mental 
superiority, there is nothing comparable in this re- 
spect to the Letter on the Formulary. Closeness, 
sagacity, vigor of argument, energy of language, every 
ingredient of eloquence is there, and stands out in 
fine relief from an admirable background of humility. 
— Vinet.) 

The letter is addressed to Angelique de St. Jean, 
d'Andilly's daughter. We here give it in full : 

"My very dear Sister:— The little notice that 
has been taken of our scruples in the matter of the 
signature would prevent my recapitulating them at 
this time, did the case admit of delay. As it is, I 
think I ought to tell you that the difficulties I men- 
tioned in writing to our Mother (Agnes), referred to 
the modified formulary, the proposed mandement, a 
copy of which had, by a singular chance, fallen into 
our hands. 

" We understand very well the pretense that our 
signature only binds us to submission to the Church 
(that is to say, to silence in matters of fact and be- 



Fragments Gathered Up. 319 

lief in matters of faith). Most of us wish, with all our 
hearts, that the requirement were something worse, 
for then we could reject it with entire liberty, but 
now some will feel constrained to accept it, and false 
prudence or real cowardice will induce others to ac- 
cept it as an easy means of procuring safety for the 
conscience and for the person as well. 

" For my part, I am persuaded that there is safety 
neither for body nor for soul in such a course. Truth 
is the only real liberator, and she makes none free 
but those who will themselves strike off their fetters 
— those who confess her so faithfully that she can in 
turn confess them as the true children of God. 

" I can not dissimulate the pain which pierces to 
the very bottom of my heart when I see those per- 
sons to whom God has confided His truth unfaithful 
to it, and, if I may dare to say so, wanting in the 
courage to endure suffering, and perhaps death, for 
truth's sake. 

" I know the reverence that is due to the high 
authorities of the Church ; I would willingly die to 
preserve that reverence inviolate, just as I am ready, 
by God's help, to die for the confession of my faith. 
But it seems to me nothing is easier than to unite 
the two. What is to prevent us — what is to prevent 
every ecclesiastic, who knows the truth, from answer- 
ing, when the formulary is presented for signature : 
i I know what respect i owe to their lordships the 



$2o Sister and Saint. 

bishops ; but my conscience will not permit me to 
declare that a certain thing is in a book which I have 
never found there p ? And, after that, we may pa- 
tiently await the result. 

" What are we afraid of? Banishment, dispersion, 
the seizure of property, prison and death, if you will ! 
But is not that our glory, and ought it not to be our 
joy? Either let us give up the Gospel or follow its 
principles and esteem ourselves happy in suffering 
for righteousness' sake. 

" But perhaps we may be cast out from the Church ! 
True ; and yet who does not know that no one can be 
really cast out of the Church except by his own will ? 
The spirit of Jesus Christ being the only thing which 
unites His members to Himself and to each other, 
we may, indeed, be deprived of the badge of that 
membership, but we can not be deprived of the mem- 
bership itself, so long as we preserve the spirit of 
love, without which no one is a living member of His 
holy body. Is it not plain, therefore, that so long as 
we do not erect altar against altar (that is, form or 
join a schismatic Church), while we continue within 
the limits of simple remonstrance and meek endur- 
ance of persecution, charity will of necessity unite us 
to the Church by inviolable bonds. It is our enemies 
alone who will have excommunicated themselves by 
the divisions they are trying to produce ! 

" Alas ! my dear sister, what joy we ought to feel 



Fragments Gathered Up. 321 

if we are permitted to endure some special reproach 
for Christ's sake ! But there is too much pains taken 
to prevent this, when truth is so disguised that she 
can scarcely be recognized. 

" I admire the ingenuity of the human mind as dis- 
played in the perfection with which this mandement 
is drawn up. It is worthy of a heretic ; but for the 
faithful — for those who know and should sustain the 
truth — for members of the Catholic Church to stoop 
to such disguises ! I can not believe that such things 
were ever known in the past ages of the Church, and 
I pray God that we may all die now rather than be 
the means of introducing such proceedings into the 
Church. I find it difficult, indeed, my dear sister, to 
believe that such wisdom as this comes down from 
the Father of lights ; rather it seems to me a revela- 
tion of flesh and blood. 

" Forgive me, my dear sister, I beg. I speak in the 
agony of a grief which I feel certain will kill me, if I 
have not the consolation of seeing that there are 
some persons willing to suffer for the truth, and to 
protest against the weakness of others. 

■" You know very well that the condemnation of a 
holy bishop (Jansen) is by no means the only ques- 
tion in debate. His condemnation includes that of 
the doctrine of our Saviour's grace. If our times 
are so unfortunate that no one can be found to 
die for a righteous man, yet let it not be said that 

14* 



Sister and Saint. 



there is no one willing to die for righteousness 
itself ! 

" Perhaps you will say to me that this does not 
concern us, because of our own particular formulary 
which our friends have drawn up for us ; I answer 
two things to that. First, that St. Bernard teaches 
us that the most insignificant member of the Church 
not only may, but ought to cry aloud and spare not 
when he sees the bishops and pastors in such a state 
as we see them now. l Who/ says he,. ' can blame me 
for calling out, though I am but a feeble sheep, if I 
try to awaken my shepherd when I see him asleep 
and on the point of being devoured by a wild beast ? 
Even were I so ungrateful as not to do this out of 
love and gratitude, ought not a sense of my own 
peril to prompt my utmost efforts to arouse him ? 
For who is to defend me if my shepherd is devoured ? ' 
This, as you know, does not refer to our own pastors 
and friends, for they have as great a horror of dis- 
guises as I have ; but I speak of the leaders of the 
Church in general. 

"The other thing which I answer, and which I con- 
fess to you, my dear sister, is that I have not been 
able thus far to entirely approve our formulary, even 
as it now is. I could wish changes in several par- 
ticulars. 

"The first is at the beginning; for it seems hard 
for persons like us to offer so freely to give an ac- 



Fragments Gathered Up. 323 

count of our faith. I would give it, however, but 
with a little preamble which should take away the 
apparent presumption of such a declaration. The 
second point is toward the close, where I would not 
mention the decisions of the Holy See. It is true we 
do submit to those decisions in matters of faith, but 
the vulgar do not discriminate, and it would be 
thought that we assented to the condemnation of 
Jansen. 

" I know very well that the defense of the truth is 
not women's business. But when bishops have the 
cowardice of women, women should, perhaps, have 
the courage of bishops. And, if it is not for us to 
defend the truth, we can, at least, suffer for it. 

" A comparison occurs to me, illustrating my idea 
on the decisions of the Holy See. Everybody knows 
that the doctrine of the Trinity is one of the princi- 
pal points of our faith, and Saint Augustine (for in- 
stance) would, without doubt, willingly confess and 
sanction it ; yet, supposing his native country hap- 
pened to be in possession of a pagan prince who 
wished to have the unity of God denied, and a plu- 
rality of deities acknowledged, and supposing a cer- 
tain formulary had been drawn up to this effect, ' I 
believe that there are several persons to whom we 
may give the name of God and address our prayers/ 
do you believe St. Augustine would sign such a 
formulary ? I do not believe he would, and what is 



3-4 Sister and Saint. 

more, I do not believe he ought to if he would. 
Now what I say of St. Augustine I say also of you 
and of me, and of the most insignificant persons in 
the Church. The feebleness of our influence does not 
lessen our guilt if we use that influence against the 
truth. 

u M. de St. Cyran often says that the least truth of 
religion ought to be defended as jealously as Christ 
himself. Where is the Christian who would not 
abhor himself if he had been present in Pilate's coun- 
cil, and when the question of Christ's condemnation 
arose, had been contented with giving an ambiguous 
answer? Is not the sin of St. Peter trivial in com- 
parison with such a sin, and yet how St. Peter 
mourned all his life long over his sin ! Follow this 
comparison to its last results, I beg you. My letter 
is only too long already. 

" This, dear sister, is what I think about the 
Formulary : I wish it to be clear in all that it con- 
tains, and these words or something like them, might, 
I think, be placed at its head : Ignorant as we are, 
all that can be expected of us in this signature is a 
testimony to the sincerity of our faith, and of sub- 
mission to the Church, to the Pope as its supreme 
head, and to the Archbishop of Paris, our superior ; 
although we do not think it right that we should be 
called upon to give an account of our faith as we 
have never given any occasion for that faith to be 



Fragments Gathered Up. 325 

called in question ; nevertheless, to avoid the sus- 
picions our refusal might occasion, we testify in this 
public manner that, esteeming nothing so precious as 
the treasure of a pure faith, we wish to preserve ours 
at the expense of our lives, if need be ; we desire to 
live and to die humble daughters of the Catholic 
Church, believing all that she believes, and ready at 
any time to die for the least of her truths. 

" Let us pray God, my dear sister, that He will 
strengthen us and make us humble, for humility with- 
out strength, and strength without humility, are equally 
dangerous. This, more than ever before, is the time 
for us to remember that the fearful have their place 
with the unbelieving and the abominable. 

" If they are contented with the statement I have 
sketched, well and good. For myself, if the matter 
is left in my own hands I shall never sign anything 
stronger. Then let what will come. Poverty, dis- 
persion, prison, death — all these seem to me nothing 
in comparison with the anguish of my whole future 
life, if I should be wretched enough to make a league 
with death instead of profiting by such an opportu- 
nity of paying my vows to God. 

" It is indifferent to me what words are used, pro- 
vided we give no reason to think that we condemn 
either the doctrine of the grace of Jesus Christ, or 
him who has so ably expounded it. 

" That is why, in saying l believe all that the 



326 Sistci' and Saint. 

Church believes/ I have omitted the words 'and 
condemn all that it condemns.' I believe that this 
is not the time to say that, lest the condemnation of 
the Church should be confounded with the present 
decision. Even as our beloved M. de St. Cyran says, 
1 Pagans having placed an idol on the spot where a 
cross once stood, Christians should not go there to 
worship, lest it should seem as if they were worship, 
ing the idol/ " 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

<T Aiguillon, Duchesse 34, 84 

d 1 Alibrai, M 105 

d'Andilly 71,135 

u and St. Cyran 75, 89, 90 

d'Andilly' s daughter 71, 295 

Angers 137 

Annat, Father 257,260 

Anne of Austria 87, 156, 257, 280 

44 examines the mir- 
acle 271 

44 Jacqueline's poems 

dedicated to 20 

" peculiarities 10 

41 receives appeal from 

Angelique 282 

14 m 4< Regent £5, 166 

Anjou, Bishop of 281 

Archbishop of Paris 271, 283 

44 angry 285 

44 answer of Ger- 
trude de Va- 

lois to. 303 

Armand 35 

Arnaulds 135, 138,, 197 

44 father of. 255 

Arnauld, Agnes 68, 109, 136, 232, 270 

characteristics . . . 157-159 
childish characteris- 
tics. *i37 

comforts Jacqueline. 211 
imprisoned at Paris . 291 

last days 303 

portrait of 134 

by Philip 
de Champagne... 158 
writes to Jacque- 
line. . . . 124, 158, 181 
writes letter to the 

King 282 

writings of. 158, 199 

Arnauld, Angelique 68, 109, 123, 180 

44 advice in matter 

of dowry.. 212 

44 childish charac- 
teristics.. 136, 137 
44 comforts Jacque- 
line 214 

** contrasted with 

Agnes... 156, 157 

" " death 285,286 

" * 4 leaves Valley of 

Chevreuse.. . . 281 



PAGE 

Arnauld, Angelique, letter to Anne 

of Austria... 282 
44 " sketch of. . . 134-147 
44 44 takes in benight- 
ed nuns 217 

44 44 view of miracle . 272 
44 44 writes to Jac- 
queline 124 

Arnauld, Anne 137, 197, 246 

44 4W as teacher 244-246 

Arnauld, Antoine (the Great Ar- 
nauld) 83, 138 

44 " and the Sorbonne 

257, 260, 261 
44 " answers objections. 

289 
44 44 in favor of signing 

Formulary. 286, 287 
44 Jacqueline's note 

to 289 

44 44 note of com- 
mand " 290 

Arnauld, Henri = 137, 281 

44 Madame 152 

44 Madeleine 138, 232 

44 Marie Claire 69, 137 

44 Simon.. 138 

Augustinus, The . . 54 

44 44 contains the Five 

Propositions. 257, 280 

41, 44 finished 58, 59 

44 44 What it was 61 

Auvergne 3, 4, 31, 269 

Bastille. , 31,281 

Battledore and Shuttlecock 58, 249 

Bayonne . . . . . . 56, 57 

44 Bishopric offered to St. 

Cyran 67 

Beati Soleil, Baron and Baroness de. 88 

Bellay, M., confirms Jacqueline 82 

: Bernard, St 227, 231 

j Bible, French translation of.... 228, 281 

Bienassis 125 

I Body, Pascal's neglect of. 229-231 

I Bossuet 168,268 

j Calculus, Differential and Integral. 297 
Calvinism or Calvinist 42, 61, 138 

; Capuchin friar, preaches at Port 

Royal 139 

Cid, The 45 

(327) 



3 2S 



Index. 



PAGE 

Codex claromontanus 6 

Con do. Prince of 121, 169, 270 

Conti, Prince and Princess of 272 

Corneille 44,45,268,273 

Cornet, Father. 257 

Champagne, Philip de, painting by. 158 

Chapelet Secret. Le 158 

Charles I. of England 11, 67 

Chevreuse, valley of. .. . . . 133, 134, 150 

Angelique leaves 

281 
" u dampness of. 152, 153 

Clermont 3, 4, 263, 266 

■* Fastings and vigils at. 161-164 

** Hospital _ 300,301 

u Jacqueline visits 128 

Cluny, Hotel 123 

Defretal, Father 263 

De la Bouteillerie 81 

Descartes 25, 99, 100 

" meets Pascal In Paris 104 

Deslandes 81 

De Wert, John .. ; 89 

Director of Consciences 66 

Directress, Jacqueline appointed her 

brother's 227^239 

Du Droit,— question 260 

Du Fait, — question 260 

Elvira, Countess of Toulouse 5 

Escobar.. . _ 266 

Examination of Jacqueline before 
Grand Vicar 284 

Felix, M 271 

Five Propositions, The 62, 257 

" " again marshalled 

out 280 

" lt discussed by Ar- 

nauld and the 
Doctors of the 
Sorbonne . . 260 

Flavie, Sister 269, 270 

Fontaine 73 

Formulary ... 258 

" Dying nuns made to sign. 305 
14 Jacqueline's letter on sign- 
ing the 288,318-326 

" Modified 286 

vt New 280,281 

Fronde, Wars of the . 169 

M Fruit benit " 156 

Galileo 99 

Gassion 42 

Grand Vicar 271, 283, 284 

Granges, Les 155,229,259 

Guemene, Princess 86, 87, 271 

Guillebert, Pastor 79, 80, 81 

" " training under 113 

Hamilton, Sir William (estimate of 
Pascal) 29 

Hauranne, Jean du Verger de (St. 
Cyran) 56 



PAGE 

Hautefort, Madame de 19 

Henrietta of England 67 

Henry Fourth (of France) 139 

Hippocrates 230 

Holy Sacrament, adoration of. . 200, 201 

Holy Thorn, miracle of 268-273 

Huguenots 48-50 

4fc ^Angelique's aunts 139 

" "Grandfather of the Ar- 

naulds . . 138 

M resemblance of Jansen- 

ists to . . ... 61 
Hymn translated by Jacqueline 178 

Jansen, Cornelius, sketch of life. 54-62 

" portrait of 134 

Jansen's great work(j^ Augustinus). 
Jansenism or Jansenist . . . 241, 255, 257 

vv characterized 256 

Jesuits and New Formulary . . 280 

41 and Pascal's experiments 101 

" and Provincial letters 262, 263 
" and the Five Propositions. 

257* 258 

Jesuits' hatred of St. Cyran 72 

" influence with government. 

255-257 

Jesuits punish Port Royal.. 286, 301-306 

u Schools 72 

Lancelot. 73 

Latin Quarter 123 

Laud, Archbishop 11 

Letters of Jacqueline Pascal. . . . 35, 124, 
173, 190, 205, 215, 221, 223, 224, 229, 
230, 231, 234, 269, 270, 278, 279, 283, 288 

Letter on Formulary 318-326 

Letters, Provincial, (see Pascal, Blaise). 

Liancourt, Due de 259 

Longueville, Duehesse de.. 169, 271, 301 

Louis XI 7 

Louis XIII 10,85 

Louis XIV _ 86 

" " conscience of. 280 

u " disperses the nuns. 304 

" _ " education of. 167 

Louvain 56,58 

Maintenon, Madame de 304 

Maitre, Le 138 

11 Madame Le 135,136,228 

Mandement (modified formula). 286, 280 

Marion, M 136 

Maternite, La (Hospital). 123 

Mazarin, Cardinal. 85, 137, 156, 166, 169, 
257, 280 

Medici, Cosmo di. . . 99 

Mersenne, Fatner 100 

Moliere 268 

Mons, M. de (assumed name of Pas- 
cal) 263 

Montalte, Louis de (Pascal's nom de 

plu me) 266 

Montpensier, Mad'selle de 18 

Morangis, M. and Madame de 18 



Index. 



3 2 9 



PAGE 

NlCOLE 286 

Novice, Jacqueline as . . # 205 

Novices, Duties as sub- mistress of. 

231, 232 ■ 

44 reception of 218 

44 Sub-mistress of 239 

Pailleuk 25 ! 

Palais Royal 10 i 

Pascal, Blaise 8 I 

'* " atmospherical experi- 

ments .... .... 98-101 

1,4 t: austerities of . . . . 242, 244, 

278, 298, 299 
" 4t calculating machine. 42, 98 

confession of faith 310 

44 a conversion of. 83-85 

44 44 death of. 298, 299 

44 difficulties in regard to 

dowry 208-21 1 

settlement of difficul- 
ties in regard to 

dowry 214, 215 

44 dray invented by. 297 
44 encourages Jacque- 
line's project 117 

" " experiments on sound. 22 
fault mentioned by sis- 
ter. . . . . . . 297, 298 

44 " Geometrical investiga- 
tions 23-25 

44 ill-health.. 96, 97, 102, 103 
k4 " Jacqueline's letter on 

taking the vow.. 206-208 
44 later mathematical stud- 
ies 297 

love for Jacqueline.. . 296 
44 44 mental struggles.. 115, 116 

44 41 omnibus invented by.. 297 

'* 44 opinion on signing 

Formulary 286, 287 

44 " Pensees .... 297 

44 extracts from. 

44 Provincial letters. 239-268 

u u Provincial letters, ex- 

tracts from .. 313-317 

44 '* Provincial letters, ori- 

gin of ... 260, 261 

u 44 remark on Jacqueline's 

death . 296 

44 u " Second conversion". 

223-229, 241 

" " simplicity of. 298 

14 44 statue in Tour St. 

Jacques 107 

44 u system of learning to 

read 234-236 

44 " system of logic 236 

1,4 " theories of education 

73i 2 3 6 
wheelbarrow invented 

b y r *97 

wotldlmess. 192, 193, 241, 
242 



PAGE 

Pascal, Etienne 7, 16, 20 

4fc '' answers Father Noel. 101 
" 4i conducts his son's ed- 
ucation 16,23-23 

Councillor of State.. . 116 

death of . . 189 

44 " flight from Paris. ... 31 
k> " Intendant of Nor- 
mandy 40 

44 u Jacqueline's letter to. 

. 173-177 
44 opposes Jacqueline s 

project 122 

wt 44 slips on ice 81 

" " special love for Jac- 

queline . . 31, 97, 123 
Pensees {see Pascal, Blaise). 

14 edifiantes, by Jacqueline 

182-185 

Perier, Florin 43 

" ' 4 assists in Pascal's ex- 
periments 107 

44 " at Jacqueline's death. 295 

44 " austerities 223 

" " builds country-seat... . 125 

kt " conversion of. and wife. 85 

4 " u helps with Provincial 

letters 263 

" 44 joy in miracle . . . 271 

44 " letter from Jacqueline. 

221, 222 

Peiier, Margaret 46, 113, 263 

kk l4 miraculous cure of. 

268-271 
" 4k sketch of after-life. 

299-301 

Perier, Madame, marriage of 43 

' 4 lays aside orna- 
ments 114 

14 " position in regard 
to Jacqueline's 
dowry. .... 209, 210 
" 41 sorrows and death. 299 
Poem on miracle, Jacqueline's (esti- 
mate of) ._ 293 

Poems of Jacqueline (published). . . 20 

Pope Alexander VII 280 

Pope Innocent X 280 

Pope Urban II 4, 5 

Poitiers (St. Cyran, Bishop of} . 64 

Port Royal ;••.•• 73^ Io8 i Il6 > I2 3 

14 u Constitutions of. ... 199, 201 

44 " distress at 169-171 

41 " endowing 208-211 

44 " final scenes at des 

Champs 304-306 

44 44 final scenes at Pans. 301-303 

44 "' fruit of 156 

" 41 Jacqueline enters.. . 215-218 
k4 4 * Jacqueline leaves home 

for 195 

44 44 Jacqueline's reception 

at 197, 198 

44 life at i33" I 56 

44 ;4 popularity of 86,271 



33o 



Index. 



PAGE 

- »yal, probation at 205 

receiving a novice at 218 

schools for boy? 72, 73 

%i schools for girls 244-246 

w troubles at. 259,280,281-283 

Pntherie, M. de la 270 

Prince Henry of Bourbon 76 

Prize at Rouen . 45 

Provincial Letters {see Pascal, Blaise) 

Puritans 12 

Puy de Dome, atmospherical experi- 
ments on 6,108 

Puy de Dome, finding of Codex clar- 
omontanus... 6 

Queen of Poland 271 

Racine 73, 168 

Raymond of Toulouse . 5 

Recluses . 72,152-154 

Reflections — Jacqueline's on death 

of Christ 172,182-185 

Renti, Marquis de 230 

Richelieu — and St. Cyran . . . 66-68 

death of 85 

imprisons St. Cyran... 74-76 
pardons Pascal, Pere. . . 38 
play acted before. . . . 33-37 
receives Pascal children 20 

speculations 16.30 

M wars against Hugueno s. 10 

Roannez, Due de 242,295,304 

" Mdelie de 242 

Roberval ... 25, 105 

Rochelle 139 

Rocroy 121 

Rouen 39,43,44,79,80 

Rouville 79 

Ruel, play-acting at. 35 

Rules, Jacqueline Pascal's, for gov- 
ernment of children 246-252 

Saci, de 73, 228, 230, 2S1 

Saintot, Madame dc 17, 37 

Serenade, by Jacqueline .... 47 

S6ricourt, de 71 

Sevign6, Madame de 133 

Marquis de 271 

Singlin, Pere 

" '" advice as to signature 

of Formulary 288 

" ll does not approve of 

Pascal's mirth 264 

" course in matter of 

dowry 212 

kt kl guidance of Pascal. 

224-228 
11 u judgment of Jacque- 

line's " vocation ". . 117 



PAC.R 

Singlin, Pere, letter after Jacque- 
line's death 2g6 

" opinion on writing 

poetry 180 

Skepticism does not attack Pascal. 84 
Small-pox, Jacqueline suffers from. 

,. 3I ~ 33 
lines on recovery 32 

Sonnet, Devotional 47 

Sorbonne . . 103, 123, 257 

Vw Spiritual regimen " 230 

Stanzas thanking God for gift of 

^ verse ! 21 

Stanzas on recover} 7 from small-pox. 32 

St. Ange, Madame de 87 

St. Augustine, studied by the two 

friends 57, 58 

St. Augustine, St. Cyran reading... 74 
St. Augustine, *' mystic tower ", ... 125 

St. Cyr, Convent of 135,156 

St. Cyran, Abbe de 65-76 

kk anecdotes of 69-72 

illness and death 90, 91 

" in prison. . . . 87-80 

intimacy with Jansen. 56-60 

k " portrait of 134 

released 85 

" sayings of.. .. 221,222 

St. Etienne du Mont, tomb of Pas- 
cal and sister 209 

St. Francis d 1 Sales 138, 144, 162 

St. Jacques, Tour de 107, 108 

k< Faubourg de 152,217 

St. Lawrence, river. ... 304 

St. Germain, verse-making at ... 18-20 
St. Sulpice, Due de Liancourt con- 
fesses at 259 

System of learning to read, Pas- 
cal's 234, 235 

System of logic, Pascal's 235 

TlSCHENDORF 6 

Torricelli 99, 100 

Tuilleries 169 

Vacuum, theory of 98 

Valois, Gertrude de (answer to Arch- 
bishop) 303 

Versailles 134 

Verses recited to Richelieu 35, 

Verses of Jacqueline.. . 4,21,32,47,48, 
119, 179 

Verses written for the Queen 18, 19 

Vincennes 74,79 

Voltaire 269 

Ypres. Jansen Bishop of 58 



H 126 82 



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